Slashdot Mirror

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

So, will you admit you were wrong or just find some way to move the goalpost so you don't look like the complete fucking retard you are?

I find it interesting that so many people seem to think science and faith are mutually excluseive.... All very technically minded people, and all very much connected to their faith.

And what does "technically minded" have to do with "scientific"? There are a lot of physicians out there who are creationists. (Ron Paul is one, just one point in his batshit insanity.) Engineers are no more necessarily scientific in their worldview than are plumbers.

Probably few of you are old enough to remember the dust-up when Forrest M. Mims, a popular author of books for electronics hobbyists, was turned down as editor of Scientific American's "Amateur Scientist" column in part because he's an evolution denier. Mims is a perfect example of a "technically minded" person who wouldn't know science if it bit him on the ass.

Oh there have been plenty of examples of observed speciation. So many that talkorigins makes an entire FAQ about it. I'm not even sure what you mean independently verified except as some lame cop out.

More like the Samuel L Jackson version of Dawkins (although, I'll admit I'm not nearly as cool as either.) And yes, I'm just letting of some steam here.

What?!

What the fuck?!

Those sections say the "null hypothesis" is that there had to be some intelligent agency behind the appearance of living things. It is up to the scientists proposing a naturalistic explanation to prove their case.

Since motherfucking when? I'll tell you, motherfucking never. How much more fucking evidence must scientists throw before your motherfucking ugly fucking face before you fucking get it?

Sample says the "null hypothesis" is such because the old experiments that attempted to produce "building blocks" of amino acids failed to do so. In addition later experiments that produced other precursor chemicals, such as DNA and RNA, required very specific conditions in a lab, and aren't he said. Necessarily reflective of what the early Earth was like. Therefore, he said, the odds of making life from non-life seem too small for a naturalistic hypothesis to work.

Well, what the fuck do you call this? And very specific lab conditions? Well, guess what motherfucker, the early Earth have very specific conditions that resemble nothing like what we have today, so yes, those conditions have to be specific in the laboratory. This doesn't even touch the fact that the early Earth was a much bigger fucking laboratory than some fucking room at a university.

Sample says it isn't stealth creationism - he says the intelligent agency might just as well be aliens. But he emphasizes that he wants students to learn to think critically, and that unlike the physical sciences, there aren't any experiments you can do to demonstrate evolutionary theory.

Firstly, observational evidence that can be repeatably confirmed is just as valid as repeatable experiments with observation in a laboratory. And this is yet another case of "What the fuck do you call this?":

While studying the genetics of the evening primrose, Oenothera lamarckiana, de Vries (1905) found an unusual variant among his plants. O. lamarckiana has a chromosome number of 2N = 14. The variant had a chromosome number of 2N = 28. He found that he was unable to breed this variant with O. lamarckiana. He named this new species O. gigas.

Do you see what year is in there? 1905! Speciation was observed in nineteen o'fucking five. That's 23 fucking years after Darwin's death. Can't fucking demonstrate evolution in the lab my ass.

To paraphrase:

Does the idea that there might be knowledge frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon on Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you frighten you?
Does the idea that there might not be a supernatural so blow your Christian noodle that you'd rather stand there in the fog of your inability to Google?
Isn’t this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, NATURAL world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?

(Watch the rest, you won't regret it, promise.)

I get the idea that it's scary to think that this is all we have, but that's not an excuse to just start making things up to make yourself feel comfortable. If we truly want immortality, the only thing that can possibly deliver on that is science. And we can't continue to be held back by people whose only goal is to advance their favorite fairy tales in spite of the consequences. And yes, science can answer question

Your objection is laughable. Without even going back a million years, I can give you fossil series from old world savanna Alces gallicus, and from Alces latifrons to Alces alces. I know equus (horses) can boast a similarly robust fossil series. So can a number of other taxa. But you know what? Even if we never found a single fossil, ever, the evidence for evolution would be robust - There's biogeography, there's genetics, there's morphometics, there's observed natural selection in the modern world, and so on. One need but google "Evidence for evolution" to be bombarded with so much rigorous scientific evidence as to simply overwhelm any braying to the contrary.

But it'll never be enough. We could find every fossil, sequence every genome, and compile so much evidence it would collapse a library, and people are still going to reject evolution. It's rarely a rational thing, and more often than not it's predicated on misinformation and other beliefs. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, just for a moment, that your objection isn't born out of religious fervor, but that would mean that you're instead woefully misinformed.

Evolution is a theory, and a fact.Faith, to be blunt, doesn't enter into it.

If a bit of evidence can equally well support either view, then it cannot be cited to support one or the other.

Yes it can, there are infinite theories to explain anything. A unicorn did it. A wizard did it. Flying green man did it. Infinite theories just by adding some unprovable piece to them. Do you accept all these theories as valid? Do you accept the Hindu explanation of the universe? The Buddhist one?

Which version of ID do you accept? God as the clockmaker that did nothing afterward? God who only modified things occasionally? God who tinkers constantly? How much evolution do you accept in the process? Bacteria clearly evolve or are you saying god is the reason we have anti-biotic resistant bacteria?

The Roman Catholic Church, btw, which covers quite a few Christians has no problems with evolution.

Of course, your belief that evolution does not predict anything shows how little you know of evolution or problems you have with it. You parrot talking points you do not even comprehend. Nor do you even seek to learn more, a 10 second google search leads to things like this:
  * http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience
  * http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA210.html

So please, shut up for your own good and let the grown ups talk till you've learned enough not to make yourself look like an uneducated intellectually lazy hick.

There are hundreds of fossils of extinct primates, including dozens (or more) of hominans, that is humans and our extinct relatives. Take a look at the Smithsonian's page, The Institute of Human Origins, archaeologyinfo.com, The New Scientist, or good old talk.origins for some examples. Also humans and chimpanzees split off from each other about 6 million years ago, and the apes (or superfamily hominoidea which includes humans, chimps, orangutans, gorillas, and gibbons) split off from old-world monkeys about 25 million years ago. The split between old- and new-world monkeys occurred about 35 million years ago. We didn't evolve from monkeys any more than monkeys evolved from us. We share a common ancestor, just like on a much smaller scale my cousin and I share a common ancestor.

As for breeding, yes it's evolution. Humans have been doing it for millenia, e.g. domesticating wolves into dogs. Human beings have created new species. Human beings are in a continuing arms race with bacteria thanks to evolutionary pressure caused by antibiotics.

I have no idea what point you are making about a white man and an asian woman unless it's to demonstrate some grotesquely naive idea of how evolution manifests itself. However even in your absurd example it is self evident that two people who have survived to adulthood did not succumb to sickness, starvation, injury or predators beforehand. Therefore they get to pass on their genes unlike their more unfortunate brethren. It's survival of the fittest. Beneficial traits accumulate, harmful traits get weeded out.

Seriously though you need to read talkorigins.org. Start by reading what evolution is and if necessary read through the FAQs as every single creationist talking point is methodically destroyed.

Yes, but speciation does have support. Speciation has been observed. (Obviously it takes millions of years, so it is not the same species going through all stages). We have, however, seen groups of organisms going through a species split.

Jesus was liberal with his own resources, to our benefit.

He also told people to give away all their possessions. Have you done that yet?

Modern liberals give only other people's money away, and then only to their supporters.

Oh, so liberals don't pay taxes? That money doesn't go to benefit even one conservative? Conservatives never vote for pork? You need to take off the blinders and put on your thinking cap.

I have to respond to this post because it is pure FUD. The question of irreducible complexity and violations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics arguments have not been refuted, and I check regularly.

The 2nd law has never been a legitimate objection to evolution. If it were, it would also refute the growth of any organism from a single cell to a large body.

The refutation of irreducible complexity is here. I pointed it out last time you trolled on evolution, but obviously you still haven't read it.

Do you have some reference for your debunki? I am always entertained by a good tautology.

No you're not. You're amused by your own perceived cleverness, by "debunking" science you don't understand.

There is no way that any past event can be proved, using this standard.

Then it's a good thing that science isn't concerned with proving anything; nothing is ever so well established that it cannot be called into question. Theories can never be proved—only disproved. The idea is to come up with an explanation which fits existing observations while also being both testable and falsifiable—not "provable".

My objections to your "testable prediction of ID" are as follows: (a) "ordered states" is vague and undefined; (b) by saying that they "might" be found, as opposed to "should be" found, you imply that not finding such states would not disprove ID; and (d) ID is rather broader than you imply, and not all supporters of ID would agree that intelligent design must include states we would recognize as "ordered". If you were to argue instead that the universe was designed by a being whose intelligence and capabilities are comparable to, and comprehensible by, humans, then that would be a testable prediction for the simple reason that we know what humans are capable of. (It would also be obviously false; the universe does not resemble anything a human might have designed.) However, the actual argument is that the universe was designed by a superhuman intelligence, and there is no way to falsify that. No matter what is found, we can always posit that a superhuman intelligence may be working to a design which we simply cannot comprehend.

What I discovered was that each of the evidences as a support for evolution is dependent on assumptions that may or may not be true.

Care to back that up with specifics? Keep in mind that we are discussing your supposed evidence (testable predictions) in favor of ID; the article in question was only given as an example of equivalent predictions in favor of common descent.

In addition, you would need to rule out that the similarities of species is due to them being from the same design house.

You really should read the follow-up article which addresses this and other objections raised by Ashby Camp: Theobald Responds to Ashby Camp's "Critique". In short, however, your point fails to consider that the similarities in underlying structure are not simply a matter of "reuse", but actually follow the ancestry of the species. When the same superficial function is found in separate branches of the tree the mechanism which implements that function tends to differ. This is not the pattern one would expect from an intelligent designer attempting to conserve designs. It is, however, the pattern one would expect from parallel evolution in the context of universal common descent.

Creationists make claims that are in conflict with well established scientific claims. You can, in fact, test many of their claims against very well known scientific evidence.

See here for a list of claims that Creationists have made and then tell me again that "it has not been tested."
http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Scientists don't have to claim religion is true or false. They only need to keep doing what they are already doing and the claims made by religions will be eroded away until we have nothing left but truth.

Thus, ID makes a prediction here: that there are ordered states that might be discovered with respect to complex systems such as life.

And if no such states are discovered, does that prove that ID is wrong, or will it simply be taken as evidence that we aren't looking hard enough? Can you give an actual example of an observation which would invalidate ID, and prove that there is no intelligent designer?

For some great examples of testable predictions within evolution—specifically, the core concept that existing species are related by common descent from a single ancestor—see 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Or, for a shorter read, you can find a few specific predictions listed under Evolution as theory and fact on Wikipedia.

It seems to me that the drive to cure disease is infused with the idea that there is (or was in the past) a more desirable state than the one the victim is currently exhibiting.

Certainly I can agree that this drive supports the idea that some people believe there may exist a more desirable state—specifically, one without the disease. However, your argument hinges on the concept that this state did in fact exist in the past (in particular, as the original state), for which you present no evidence.

Keep in mind that 98% of the people commenting here do not have a freaking clue what ID actually is. If you were to look at all scientific evidence from a purely unbiased perspective, ID makes at least as much sense (especially if you just do the math on the probability of creation and life's evolving through pure chance) as evolution.

Apparently you don't either. Look at all the scientific evidence, huh? What scientific evidence is there for ID? Care to cite some?

Like it or not, both evolution and ID require faith to believe. Neither should be considered pure science since neither can be repeated in the lab.

This old straw-man again. You're simply wrong, except about the ID requiring faith part.

I'd be interested to know how you'd test the macro evolution theory. Micro evolution is simple, but setting an experiment running to prove macro evolution and still being alive to ascertain success/failure will be tricky certainly in higher level organisms, sure mutation in high living organism occur fairly frequently, but I have yet to spot any successes ni these mutations.

From my understanding both are attempting to describe from the evidence how such beautifully complex biological systems are in place, one solution places an infinite number of monkeys in front of typewriters and the other claims that surely there must have been some role of design in the produced works, a.k.a "a shakespeare".

I don't think it is possible to measure which is correct, ocassionally a monkey may type the works of shakespeare, and occassionally it could be argued that a new design has been made and set loose or enabled. Fitting the historic evidence, will not validate either, scientific method dictate generate a theory, test it hopefully with a pass/fail, and then attempt to resolve the sometimes gray answer you get from a real test.....

The difference is that we have tons of evidence for (macro)evolution, and essentially none for "some kind of super-being created everything". That doesn't even begin to address the infinitely less evidence for the "oh, and my particular super-being left us this handy book/prophet/relative/artifact to tell us everything we need to know" beliefs. They don't even really address the same issue, as evolution doesn't cover the origin of everything, or even the origin of life.

thats the problem w/ all theory's of what went on before written history? even evolution the only support is slow change in an unreliable fossil history(as in we extrapolated in every case) you can only prove its possible, but when it comes the weather or not it happened and not another way that means slow change, its as "unsupported and untestable" as god

As unsupported as God? There's not a shred of evidence for God, especially of the sort described by most religions, except that which we manufacture in our minds. There's mountains of evidence for common descent.

The link content is close but not 100% relevant.
To say it in other words:
What faith does an empirical physicist have in science?
What faith does a general scientist have in empirical physics?
What faith does a plebian have in general science or empirical physics?
It gets back to the same thing. The further you are removed from the coal face the less understanding you have about coal mining.

First of all, what definition of faith are you using here? If you're using the definition of "acceptance without evidence", then that applies to religion, but not science. If you use the definition of "confidence in something", then I don't see what you're trying to make. I'll assume you're using the former definition, as your post doesn't make any sense otherwise.

It's not faith when you know the mechanics of something. Do you call it faith that the sun will rise in the morning? I call it understanding the way things work. I don't need faith to know that as long as the earth keeps rotating, the sun will rise in the morning. When it comes to more esoteric subjects, we aren't just putting faith in the explanation that science has given us (assuming it has given one), we understand how science works to bring us these explanations, and we have vast mountains of evidence all around us to show that those methods work.

So now we have a bunch of generalists who firmly believe in the objective truth of Darwinism, objecting against a judicial system based on Christian ethics and the belief in the Almighty. Within the mind set of science, it comes down to accepting Intelligent Design as a competing theory, which it can't be. What it is though, is a container for all those niggling little things that can't be explained by evolution and mutation. The sudden appearance of a flagella's motor for example is classic ID. That can't be a mutation because it hadn't mutated from anything. It's a complex structure which just appeared. So maybe there will be a refinement, perhaps leading up to a paradigm change of the Theory of Evolution, and for that reason alone, ID should be given an opportunity to survive and taken a bit more seriously.

You're going to have to explain what you're claiming here. It seems like you're using the IC argument regarding flagella. I don't see that as a particularly strong argument.

Why can't we trust it here? Show me a prof with scientific evidence of god (that passes muster in the scientific community) and he can teach science all day long.

On the other hand, science has had 300 years of trying to prove the non-existance of God and has so far failed. Ultimately, a point source of dense matter exploding into a universe, then falling back on itself for another big bang doesn't explain non-god, but lends credence to Hindu and Bhuddist beliefs instead. The aim of science (as you know it) is not to prove the existence or non-existence of God but to investigate the internal and external worlds we percieve as reality. That's all it does and meant to do. It is not an instrument to judge religious beliefs.

That's just a rather ridiculous argument.

Theory of Evolution has certain aspects required that do not necessarily (i) fit everyone's idealogy (e.g. atheism), and (ii) necessarily fit the evidence long term. For example, there is no scientific evidence that things evolved from one species to another. Even Darwin's evidence in the Galapagos lacked sustainability. While there is ample evidence for short term, cyclic minor evolution there is zero evidence for long term macro evolution.

Even most creationists will agree with Micro-evolution. Macro Evolution is another story and substantially breaks down against the body of scientific evidence. When discussing Creationism vs Theory of Evolution it is primarily Macro Evolution that is in disagreement, and which is also founded on atheistic principles that most do not agree on to start with.

You're so ridiculously wrong it's depressing.

If we see the evolution of a new, more advanced, interesting species, then ID is proven false.

If? You say this as though we haven't already observed many speciation events. Or is "advanced, interesting" code for that absurd argument about information in the genome?

DNA sequencing is now mainstream science. We don't need a panopticon of ancient DNA for the method to work.

Since most of the structures Behe and Dembski point to evolved in the distant past, it certainly seems like they wouldn't be included in the reasonable people you spoke of: "Of course, any given designer might have given up designing and taken a day off, but if species emerge through statistically normal events, then most reasonable people would assume that the rest of evolution could have happened through similarly unshocking means."

In fact, based on the fact that creationists/intelligent design advocates already come up with creative ways to ignore the speciation going on right in front of our eyes, I doubt that decreasing the error bars on modern evolution would affect their views on ancient evolution in the slightest.

If we see the evolution of a new, more advanced, interesting species, then ID is proven false.

If? You say this as though we haven't already observed many speciation events. Or is "advanced, interesting" code for that absurd argument about information in the genome?

DNA sequencing is now mainstream science. We don't need a panopticon of ancient DNA for the method to work.

Since most of the structures Behe and Dembski point to evolved in the distant past, it certainly seems like they wouldn't be included in the reasonable people you spoke of: "Of course, any given designer might have given up designing and taken a day off, but if species emerge through statistically normal events, then most reasonable people would assume that the rest of evolution could have happened through similarly unshocking means."

In fact, based on the fact that creationists/intelligent design advocates already come up with creative ways to ignore the speciation going on right in front of our eyes, I doubt that decreasing the error bars on modern evolution would affect their views on ancient evolution in the slightest.

The point is we need a statistical test developed for this sort of stuff regardless of the whole evolution debate, and when we have one developed, we could apply it to the DNA record for the past and see what it turns up.

As I said, if we had a Jurassic park time machine to collect DNA samples from the past, that might be feasible. But without a time machine, DNA simply doesn't last long enough for any sort of rigorous analysis. Even using a time machine to collect DNA samples, it's not clear that it would be possible to distinguish a rapid change in natural selection pressures from the work of a supernatural designer.

I doubt it would support ID, but it does make ID falsifiable.

I've previously listed a few experiments that already could have falsified evolution. Your fantasy doesn't count because it's too vague and requires technology that doesn't exist and may very well be impossible. That's why you wouldn't be able to publish it in a reputable evolutionary biology journal, but if this bill goes through maybe your chances will improve.

Here's a good analogy. When I was debating Brett, I proposed a "crazy hypothesis of a non-biologist" to falsify abiogenesis. I think your argument is similar to mine (albeit more vague- I didn't see you describe the exact steps necessary to identify a statistically abnormal mutation).

But I was describing abiogenesis, which scientists consider more tentative and mysterious than evolution (a separate topic.) And I later became more skeptical of my own proposed falsification, calling it an example of my "ignorance of exobiology". These sorts of musings shouldn't be conflated with the actual falsifications that have been repeatedly applied to evolution.

But all this is beside the point anyway, because Beelzebud was right to point out that "intelligent design" argues that "irreducably complex" structures like flagella can't possibly have evolved naturally. The list of these "irreducably complex" grows without bound, because it's a scientifically useless concept that embodies the "argument from incredulity".

After doing some googleing from the suggested comments I came across this link http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB141.html that was very helpful in giving a layman's explanation. If I understand correctly, it is simply the fact that the genetic material can match up that matters and not the chromosome structure. Thanks again for the clarification.

I will state again, the theory applies to the communication of information in the presence of noise. The information in this case is genetic information. The noise is mutation. From information theory: information cannot be created by noise, only destroyed with respect to the receiver. Information theory suggests that things can devolve, but evolution require information to appear from somewhere.

The short answer to this is that natural selection is a filter. Information is imparted to the genome by the environment the organism is breeding in.

More here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

OK, an example please. Should be easy to find.

Sure, examples abound: See e.g. http://talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html , esp. e.g. http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/Evolving_Immunity.html and that's just for starters.

I have been to talkorigins. I did a quick re-read for you, and the fallacy they promote is that short time frame observations will generate a meaningful observation of the entropy state of a system. The system must be observed in the presence of statistically significant opportunities for change to occur or the observation is meaningless. They are like someone investigating the theory that a copier will introduce change if a copy is copied, and they go make one copy, then extrapolate the fact that they can read all 2,000 words on the document to mean that they could make 2,000 generations of copies and read the 54th word on all of them.

It is the usual sort of argument, couched in the usual terms "I get tired of explaining this, but, ONE MORE TIME:" Since they haven't listened in the first place, the explanation misses the point of what the creationist was saying, or is deliberately misleading.

My sources for information theory are Shannon, Penrose and Hofstadter.

I am uncertain as their status on the creation/evolution question.

Information theory is quite independent of the creation/evolution debate, and has well accepted definitions for every other use, but when those are applied to evolution, using the exact same definitions, evolutionists cry foul, because they clearly contradict evolution assumptions.

The fallacy propounded in the probability article is that order is the same thing as information. They bury the fallacy in a great irrelevant discussion of thermodynamic entropy, which is irrelevant to entropy applied to information. Information theory uses the term entropy because of the similarity between the dissipation of heat and the dissipation of information in the presence of noise.

Further, I notice that talkorigins does not reference any of the standard works in information theory, at least not that I could find.

the talkorigins website also makes statements like:

"The creationist position would necessarily discard the entire mathematical framework of thermodynamics and would provide no basis for the engineering design of turbines, refrigeration units, industrial pumps, etc. It would do away with the well-developed mathematical relationships of physical chemistry, including the effect of temperature and pressure on equilibrium constants and phase changes." -- F. Stieger http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html Downloaded 11-Feb-2011

No creationist takes such a position that I have ever read, and the statement is made without reference.

Maybe I should do the same thing, and explain how talkorigins authors kick cute little kittens. I could bury it in a huge and irrelevant discussion of racoons

Let me first apologize for making an assumption. I assumed that someone with an interest in evolution would also have done some investigation into past reasoning on the subject. I realize that this is an oversight on my part.

There is a decent (incomplete) explanation of entropy in information theory at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)

Evolution predicts that a given line of organism will get better over time, given random inputs. Organisms are quite complex, but the same rule should hold for simpler systems, and allow a demonstration in a shorter time-frame then the evolutionary time-line, hence the example of cars. The use of a junk yard is a way of compressing the time required for the experiment, because we can examine many samples quickly. The point of the thought experiment is to demonstrate that instances of a design do not get better in the presence of random inputs. ID predicts that the quality of information decreases over time as random changes are made in copies of the information. Evolution predicts the opposite.

Why choose this thought experiment? because it demonstrates a crucial difference between Evolution as an origin model and Intelligent Design. I suspect the actual problem with a creation origin is that a Creator God has the authority to make a moral claim on his creation, on us. Evolution, on the other hand, presents successful procreation as the only virtue, perfect for the 'Me' generation.

I'm guessing that everything you know about entropy and thermodynamics you picked up from creationist texts or sites. At least that's where your conclusions seem to come from. They are incorrect. Maybe try some other sources for your information on the subject. Here's a good place for a quick start. Particularly this article.

Let me first apologize for making an assumption. I assumed that someone with an interest in evolution would also have done some investigation into past reasoning on the subject. I realize that this is an oversight on my part.

There is a decent (incomplete) explanation of entropy in information theory at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)

Evolution predicts that a given line of organism will get better over time, given random inputs. Organisms are quite complex, but the same rule should hold for simpler systems, and allow a demonstration in a shorter time-frame then the evolutionary time-line, hence the example of cars. The use of a junk yard is a way of compressing the time required for the experiment, because we can examine many samples quickly. The point of the thought experiment is to demonstrate that instances of a design do not get better in the presence of random inputs. ID predicts that the quality of information decreases over time as random changes are made in copies of the information. Evolution predicts the opposite.

Why choose this thought experiment? because it demonstrates a crucial difference between Evolution as an origin model and Intelligent Design. I suspect the actual problem with a creation origin is that a Creator God has the authority to make a moral claim on his creation, on us. Evolution, on the other hand, presents successful procreation as the only virtue, perfect for the 'Me' generation.

I'm guessing that everything you know about entropy and thermodynamics you picked up from creationist texts or sites. At least that's where your conclusions seem to come from. They are incorrect. Maybe try some other sources for your information on the subject. Here's a good place for a quick start. Particularly this article.

I know of no such debunking, and I have examined the literature for an honest argument to debunk it.

This should point you in the right direction: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001.html

Though I suspect you've already seen it and judged it to be incorrect for your own reasons.

All local increases in entropy are accompanied by a global decrease, so the 2nd law holds true.

Indeed. Entropy is globally decreasing in the sun, solar system, and universe. Organisms evolve through growth and reproduction, and they expend energy to do it. They get the energy from metabolizing food that got its energy from the sun, and give off waste heat as a by-product. Organisms disperse energy, going downhill in terms of entropy.

Of course, you know all this, but you choose to cling to a misinterpretation of thermodynamics. I'm only pointing it out for the benefit anyone who hasn't heard it yet.

Ok, you're basically talking out of your ass here. Come back with some scientific evidence to back up your claims.

Ok, you're basically talking out of your ass here. Come back with some scientific evidence to back up your claims.

Ok, you're basically talking out of your ass here. Come back with some scientific evidence to back up your claims.

Where to start? I'll start with your "alternative options." A person teaching something like a flat earth or a moon made of cheese is something that would indeed be absurd. Why? Because it has definitively been disproven. We have knowledge that directly contradicts those theories so much so that they could in no way be correct. Why is everyone now acting as though creationism or intelligent design has been disproven? Can you point to something in those theories that is directly at odds with something that is fact? No. And just on a side note, intelligent design uses evolution as the way the world was created. How is that at odds with anything you are saying other than it says God led the way for it to happen?

Considering that neither creationism nor ID are scientific theories, there's nothing to disprove as far as science is concerned. You can't disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster either, but that doesn't mean we should start teaching the truth of Pastafarianism in school.

Now let me get back to evolution. I will leave aside the problem of how the first living thing came into being.

As well you should, since that is not within the domain of the theory of evolution, but you knew that, right?

One of the problems I have with the evolutionary theory has to do with the energy required for new aspects of a species to come about through evolution. Let's start with the first cells. They likely had nothing for locomotion right? How were flagella developed in evolution? A cell with a flagellum moves by flapping the flagellum. How does it do so? It does so through the use of a small motor in its cell membrane. How did the cell get everything needed at the same time? Evolution would require the cell develop the flagellum in stages. Until every piece of the flagellum was present, it simply was using extra energy with zero benefit. Because of this, the cells with primitive flagella would have been at an evolutionary disadvantage than those without. So, how did something so simple as a flagellum evolve? Was it by pure and utter chance that all the parts evolved in the same generation? So, no, evolution has a lot of problems with it.

I encourage you to look into the problems with these theories. They are very enlightening.

So here we have your run-of-the-mill argument from ignorance and/or incredulity. You don't understand how it happened, therefore evolution has gaping holes and is wrong. Of course if you bothered to do even the most basic bit of research, you'd see that this subject has been covered all over the place, ad nauseum. Then you could at least frame your argument as a scientific rebuttal to those explanations. Since you haven't gotten past the hand-waving point, I don't think you're serious about finding answers, because you don't want a real answer. You want your beliefs to be validated. Sorry, but that's not what science is for.

According to Darwin the geologic record should be filled with transitional forms, but it is not. His explanation is that the geologic record is imperfect, so we end up with evolution taking place 'off stage'. Contrary to Darwin's theory we can identify distinct species from the fossil record, and there is little in the way of transition to speak of. Philosophically it matters little, since one can either assign a new fossil to an old designation or create a new one by the whim of the observer. Even if one found a birdfish or a lizzardfrog, it could just as easily be assigned to a new designation as puffed as a transitional form.

Oh, and by the way, the fossil record certainly is imperfect, but it also is full of transitional forms. That's really not much of an avenue for attacking evolution.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html

Behe has been debunked. Get over it. He has no standing in the evolutionary community, he is a laughing stock at Baylor and only tenure and the fact he doesn't use the university "letterhead" so to speak keeps him in a job. I'll repeat, he has never ever ever ever published this in any peer-reviewed journal. On top of being an anti-intellectual liar who only manages to fool hopeless morons, he's also a coward.

"No, one or a few of Behe's claims may have been demolished, but I know many physicists, engineers and biologists that can not "demolish" the idea of IC, even in their own minds."

Irreducibly complex systems in biology were first predicted by H. J. Muller in 1918 to be a consequence of evolution. See talk.origins for a quick summary, or a review of Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" from 1997. There's a (lot of) reasons why Behe wasn't taken seriously back when "Darwin's Black Box" was published in 1996 and the criticism has only deepened since then. If you're interested in the evolution of the heart a quick search turns up many articles on pubmed, for instance I learned something new today: crocodilians have a four-chambered heart!

Okay, first of all. Things in science are not "proven" in the sense that there is some point when you say "Well, that's 100% positive". As much as any theory can be proven evolution has been proven.

Secondly, "it's still a theory" indicates a woeful ignorance of what a scientific theory is. Theory, in science, isn't some wild-assed guess. It is well supported by multiple streams of evidence. What you're committing is the etymological fallacy, conflating two different definitions of a word.

As to the evidence for evolution, it is rather vast. If you have any doubts on that point, visit http://talkorigins.org/.

Evolution is both a fact and a theory. That descent from common ancestors through the mechanism of random mutation and natural selection happens is a fact. It happens. The framework of explanation detailing this fact that has predictive power is the theory.

Talk Origins.org: Only a theory.

An up-to-date complete treatise of all the basic evidence that demonstrates the foundations of evolutionary theory.

You'll find tons of good stuff here:
http://talkorigins.org/

Has anyone here actually studied creationism? Evolution makes perfect sense when you see the one-sided version presented by the scholars, but breaks down quite quickly when you start to examine the evidence against it.
...
The materials presented by Kent Hovind (tax evasion drama aside) seem to point out some of the misgivings rather nicely.

Kent Hovind??? You've got to be kidding me. The man propagates some of the WORST fallacies that have been debunked over and over again. Plus he knows absolutely nothing about actual evolutionary theory.

Do yourself a favor. Go to the Talk Origins web site and read and understand what you find there. THEN tell us if there is ANY scientific case at all for creationism.

I see you didn't read very far...

http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

Seriously, put down your ID books for a while and read the whole fucking Talk Origins site before you try to argue about this stuff.

I've seen the "ALWAYS achieved by deletion or disabling" claim before and I've also seen it debunked. I.e. added/enabled instead of just deletion/disabled.

Name one example

How about E. coli?

http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB110.html
http://www.scientificlegacies.org/doc/Lederberg.JB.1952.Replica.Plating.of.Bacterial.Mutants.pdf

anss123, you still haven't explained how even one of these systems can evolve gradually. you keep referring to some vague articles you've read in the past. Try to explain this or have someone explain this without referring to some evolutionists' imagination/fantasy scenarios. ie some explanation based on observed phenomenon not imagination.

Start here:

http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html#how2eatpcp
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html

You quote something that when searched for is revealed to be a quote popular with young-earth creationists and utterly irrelevant everywhere else, you ignorantly and without evidence spout off about the alleged unreliability of radiocarbon dating, attempt to insinuate that "evolutionists" don't believe it's accurate when in fact radiocarbon dating is accurate which is why it lines up so nicely with dendrochronology, ice cores, varves, and other nonradiometric dating systems, insinuate that the actual experts who do radiocarbon dating either are so incompetent they don't understand the limits of the technique and how to identify contaminants or are liars despite again having no evidence, and finally when spoon-fed relevant links to correct your misunderstandings you refuse to read. There is one conclusion to this: not only are you willfully ignorant, you are also amoral enough to slander the entire membership of multiple professions without cause. I do not suffer fools and as you clearly are such you are unworthy of any more of my time or anyone else's.

The good news is that YEC is not the only, or even the best reading of Genesis. See this FAQ for a brief overview, this book for a much more complete overview, and this book if you want a really good, in-depth study of the book of Genesis from a conservative scholar. It's a bit dry, and doesn't give you conclusions as much as really dig into the text, but it's highly recommended if you're serious about approaching the issue rigorously.

It's too hard to make sure I read the Bible 'the right way.' I think I'll just stick to these experimental reports.

Personally, as a Christian I'd like to see the line that says the earth isn't ~4.5 billion years old, because I can't find it...

Young Earth Creationism (hence YEC) is a hyper-literalistic reading of the book of Genesis that has been always somewhat rare in Judaism, and not always supported by even those considered mainline Christian fathers.

For YEC to be true, pretty much everything we think we know about physics, astronomy, cosmology, molecular biology and genomics must be wrong.

The good news is that YEC is not the only, or even the best reading of Genesis. See this FAQ for a brief overview, this book for a much more complete overview, and this book if you want a really good, in-depth study of the book of Genesis from a conservative scholar. It's a bit dry, and doesn't give you conclusions as much as really dig into the text, but it's highly recommended if you're serious about approaching the issue rigorously.

I've read many books on the topic, and in my opinion these are the best of the lot. Especially Beyond The Firmament, which is fairly easy read and the best introduction to the issues I've seen.

Perhaps obviously, these books are geared more towards Christians and showing them how to deal with what we believe is an important book, and not towards convincing others that Christianity and the Bible are true. Except perhaps that they might show that not all Christians are (complete) loonies...

Why would I want to read a book written by a pair of unqualified cranks pushing a radical Vedic creationist agenda using techniques cribbed from crazy Christian creationists? To lessen the loss of time read talkorigins' review. Or look up one of the authors Michael A. Cremo on his own website and note he doesn't even claim a bachelor's degree in anything or demonstrate of any kind of formal training in archaeology or related discipline. He does claim to be a "research associate in history of archaeology" whatever that is. He also proudly notes his membership in the World Archaeological Congress since 1993 which sounds pretty cool until you go to their website and find that anybody can join for as little as $20 a year. His membership in the European Association of Archaeologists is similar. This is not to disparage either organization, simply to note that membership doesn't require any actual expertise. Mr. Cremo is simply doing what he can to inflate his stature without, as is typical for cranks, doing the actual work required to become proficient in the field. Coauthor Dr. Richard L. Thompson earned a Ph.D. in mathematics, which is distant from archaeology to say the least. This is also typical of cranks, having some legitimate expertise in one field and illegitimately attempting to claim expertise over an utterly unrelated field.

Damn it now I've spent 15 minutes more than the zero seconds this bullshit deserved.

Off Amazon, order a book called the Hidden History of the Human Race (The Condensed Edition of Forbidden Archeology)

No, please don't.

The Hidden History of the Human Race is a frustrating book. The motivation of the authors, "members of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, a branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness" (p. xix), is to find support in the data of paleoanthropology and archaeology for the Vedic scriptures of India. Their methods are borrowed from fundamentalist Christian creationists (whom they assiduously avoid citing). They catalog odd "facts" which appear to conflict with the modern scientific understanding of human evolution and they take statements from the work of conventional scholars and cite them out of context to support some bizarre assertion which the original author would almost certainly not have advocated. Cremo and Thompson regard their collection of dubious facts as "anomalies" that the current paradigm of paleoanthropology cannot explain. Sadly, they offer no alternative paradigm which might accommodate both the existing data and the so-called anomalies they present; although they do indicate that a second volume is planned which will relate their "extensive research results" to their "Vedic source material" (p. xix). Kuhn noted that "To reject one paradigm without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself" (1970, p. 79); and that is precisely what Cremo and Thompson do. They claim that "mechanistic science" is a "militant ideology, skillfully promoted by the combined effort of scientists, educators, and wealthy industrialists, with a view towards establishing worldwide intellectual dominance" (p. 196).

[ ... ]

Cremo and Thompson's claim that anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens have been around for hundreds of millions of years is an outrageous notion. Accepting that there is a place in science for seemingly outrageous hypotheses (cf. Davis, 1926) there is no justification for the sort of sloppy rehashing of canards, hoaxes, red herrings, half-truths and fantasies Cremo and Thompson offer in the service of a religious ideology. Readers who are interested in a more credible presentation of the overwhelming evidence for human evolution should consult Ian Tattersall's wonderful recent book The Fossil Trail: how we know what we think we know about human evolution.

What "actual scientific articles and graphs"? As you may have noticed, denialists always distort those. They are often difficult to read for people who aren't deeply involved in the field, and require you to pay for access. The sites I link to contain simple explanations, much like TalkOrigins contains simple, straightforward responses to creationist bullshit.

I've been reading about and participating in debating evolution/creationism for nearly 20 years. I've got a small collection of creationist books, I've read what the public library has, and have spent a lot of time reading the various major creationists group's online articles. In my spare time I've also earned a B.S. Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Chemistry. So somehow despite being trained in science, being employed as a biochemist for the last 12 years, having read copious amounts of creationist literature, I've never found one single scrap of a scientific idea that wasn't already disproven as soon as the ink dried--and usually decades earlier given creationist proclivities to recycling.

You want to know why creationists don't publish creation research in scientific journals? I'll tell you: they don't do research. Behe is the only creationist (and he admits a staggering amount of evolution as true) author who managed to get an actual creationist research paper in an actual journal, Protein Science. I read it, and it was crap: It was obviously, monstrously wrong, and somehow slipped by the editors. It was quickly and thoroughly debunked both on line and within the pages of the journal itself, which I'll leave for you as an exercise in google-fu (Behe and Snoke).

Again most creationists don't do research and try to submit to real journals, see talk.origins. Creationists' own "journals" are pretty much moribund. Look for example at "Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design." The last issue of the flagship journal of Intelligent Design is from 2005! Or how about straight-up old fashioned creationism? The biggest YEC group Answers in Genesis has a journal called "Answers Research Journal" which manages to crank out a whopping dozen (plus or minus a half dozen) articles a year. A real journal has at least that many articles a month, and there are hundreds of journals dedicated to evolutionary research, and thousands more that are related subject matter.

It's not just quantity, quality too is on the side of science. Just compare any article in any mainstream journal to the high-school level rubbish in "Answers Research Journal." Also look at those creationist articles and note the rarity, to the point of non-existence, of actual original research as opposed to a weirdly distorted, selective, highly limited literature review. Peer review is the same: when I submit an article to a mainstream journal, it's reviewed by people who are at least my equal: Ph.D.s with years to decades worth of knowledge and expertise on the relevant subject matter. Creationists on the other hand have to grab whoever is available with any sort of degree. When you look at lists like "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" that is people who might be likely to review articles for "Answers Research Journal" you get a handful of biologists, and high percentage of other people with un- or peripherally-related expertise, like MDs, dentists, and engineers. You can then compare this to it's parody, Project Steve, which is larger, consists of a much higher percentage of biologists, with a much greater number of more prestigious scientists, all of whom are named "Steve" or similar.

Creationism has been judged on it's merits. It failed. It continues to be judged on its merits by masochists like me. It continues to fail. Of course, it might be nice if you guys would actually try, but then you'd quickly dump creationism just like science did 150 years ago.