15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

[ReinyDays]

Maybe that's why they run in packs.

Then why don't puma run in packs? ... is that still intelligent design? ...

 

[Woodznutz]

Then why don't puma run in packs? ... is that still intelligent design? ...

Pumas are cats. No one understands cats.

 

[Blisterfinger]

Lately we've had a Bimbo Outbreak here, with kweationist klowns and konspiwicysts starting whacky strings. Virtually all the challenges are answered here briefly.

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
John Rennie, Editor in Chief
Scientific American - June 2002
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.

Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy.
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1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.​

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Many people learned in Elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.​

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In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the Fact of evolution.​

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Relevent to some recent Kweationist Klownery.

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10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.​

On the contrary, biology has catalogued many traits produced by point mutations (changes at precise positions in an organism's DNA)--bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example.​

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Mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae and body segments should grow. In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow. These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures, which natural selection can then test for possible uses.​

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Moreover, molecular biology has discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond point mutations, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in novel ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism's DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features. Comparisons of the DNA from a wide variety of organisms indicate that this is how the globin family of blood proteins evolved over millions of years.​

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11. Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and higher orders of life.​

Evolutionary biologists have written extensively about how natural selection could produce new species. For instance, in the model called allopatry, developed by Ernst Mayr of Harvard University, if a population of organisms were isolated from the rest of its species by geographical boundaries, it might be subjected to different selective pressures. Changes would accumulate in the isolated population. If those changes became so significant that the splinter group could not or routinely would not breed with the original stock, then the splinter group would be reproductively isolated and on its way toward becoming a new species.​

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Natural selection is the best studied of the evolutionary mechanisms, but biologists are open to other possibilities as well. Biologists are constantly assessing the potential of unusual genetic mechanisms for causing speciation or for producing complex features in organisms. Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and others have persuasively argued that some cellular organelles, such as the energy-generating mitochondria, evolved through the symbiotic merger of ancient organisms. Thus, science welcomes the possibility of evolution resulting from forces beyond natural selection. Yet those forces must be natural; they cannot be attributed to the actions of mysterious creative intelligences whose existence, in scientific terms, is unproved.​

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12. Nobody has ever seen a new species evolve.​

Speciation is probably fairly rare and in many cases might take centuries. Furthermore, recognizing a new species during a formative stage can be difficult, because biologists sometimes disagree about how best to define a species. The most widely used definition, Mayr's Biological Species Concept, recognizes a species as a distinct community of reproductively isolated populations--sets of organisms that normally do not or cannot breed outside their community. In practice, this standard can be difficult to apply to organisms isolated by distance or terrain or to plants (and, of course, fossils do not breed). Biologists therefore usually use organisms' physical and behavioral traits as clues to their species membership.​

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Nevertheless, the scientific literature does contain reports of apparent speciation events in plants, insects and worms. In most of these experiments, researchers subjected organisms to various types of selection--for anatomical differences, mating behaviors, habitat preferences and other traits--and found that they had created populations of organisms that did not breed with outsiders. For example, William R. Rice of the University of New Mexico and George W. Salt of the University of California at Davis demonstrated that if they sorted a group of fruit flies by their preference for certain environments and bred those flies separately over 35 generations, the resulting flies would refuse to breed with those from a very different environment.​

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13. Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils--creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance.​

Actually, paleontologists know of many detailed examples of fossils intermediate in form between various taxonomic groups. One of the most famous fossils of all time is Archaeopteryx, which combines feathers and skeletal structures peculiar to birds with features of dinosaurs. A flock's worth of other feathered fossil species, some more avian and some less, has also been found. A sequence of fossils spans the evolution of modern horses from the tiny Eohippus. Whales had four-legged ancestors that walked on land, and creatures known as Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus helped to make that transition [see "The Mammals That Conquered the Seas," by Kate Wong; Scientific American, May]. Fossil seashells trace the evolution of various mollusks through millions of years. Perhaps 20 or more hominids (not all of them our ancestors) fill the gap between Lucy the australopithecine and modern humans.​

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Creationists, though, dismiss these fossil studies. They argue that Archaeopteryx is not a missing link between reptiles and birds--it is just an extinct bird with reptilian features. They want evolutionists to produce a weird, chimeric monster that cannot be classified as belonging to any known group. Even if a creationist does accept a fossil as transitional between two species, he or she may then insist on seeing other fossils intermediate between it and the first two. These frustrating requests can proceed ad infinitum and place an unreasonable burden on the always incomplete fossil record.​

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Nevertheless, evolutionists can cite further supportive evidence from molecular biology. All organisms share most of the same genes, but as evolution predicts, the structures of these genes and their products diverge among species, in keeping with their evolutionary relationships. Geneticists speak of the "molecular clock" that records the passage of time. These molecular data also show how various organisms are transitional within evolution.​

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Looks like a Revival is on the way

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/bible-books-religious/2024/12/01/id/1189932/

 

[ReinyDays]

Pumas are cats. No one understands cats.

That's just the Toxo talking ...

Can what was Created ever properly see the Creation? ... or do we use imperfect models ... I think everyone understands why the tomcat runs after mating ... the difference is Man knows that's a sin ... tomcats are just stupid ...

 

[rightwinger]

I can only speculate, erm let me see; you don't know the answer? is that why you haven't answered my question?

I don’t know the question
WTF are you talking about

 

[scruffy]

Can you explain why a conscious observer can cause the wave function to collapse?

Doesn't happen.

That's a myth.

Would it be something like:

superposition = f(observation by human awareness)?

Measurement does it, not observation

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

God designed all creatures to function in the current ecological environment.

Obviously not, since 99.9999% of all species went extinct, most in their contemporary environments.

 

[BackAgain]

Obviously not, since 99.9999% of all species went extinct, most in their contemporary environments.

lol.

Make up stats and post. It’s good enough for Farty.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

lol.

Make up stats and post. It’s good enough for Farty.

You can look that up. I didn't make it up. Depending in the source, you will find 99.9%, 99.99%, etc.

 

[BackAgain]

You can look that up. I didn't make it up. Depending in the source, you will find 99.9%, 99.99%, etc.

Sure pee wee. Sure.

You know it’s just an estimate, right?

Is it True That 99.9% of All Species Are Extinct? - Encyclopedia.com

According to estimations about 99.9% of all species are extinct. Scientists have no way of confirming how many species of animals have lived and are

www.encyclopedia.com

 

[Woodznutz]

Obviously not, since 99.9999% of all species went extinct, most in their contemporary environments.

Maybe, if you go back 3.5 billion years. I'm referring to the creatures created in Genesis. They survived just fine until we changed their environments or killed them all i.e. the Passenger Pidgeon. Also, most of those past extinctions happened when their environment changed drastically (God was done with them).

 

[Woodznutz]

You can look that up. I didn't make it up. Depending in the source, you will find 99.9%, 99.99%, etc.

You changed the subject from apples to oranges.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

You know it’s just an estimate, right?

No, I thought we managed to revive every species that has ever lived and count them.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Also, species are arbitrary. One could make the argument that there is only and has only ever been one species. Not that it would be very useful to do so.

 

[BackAgain]

No, I thought we managed to revive every species that has ever lived and count them.

Another in a long line of idiotic fails by Farty.

Dam; you’re a moron, Farty.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Another in a long line of idiotic fails by Farty.

Dam; you’re a moron, Farty.

We don't really pay much attention to this low rent trolling, in the science section. Sorry.

 

[BackAgain]

We don't really pay much attention to this low rent trolling, in the science section. Sorry.

Your mission is trolling. My objective was to get you to one day link a source to your claims.

You say 99.9999…% with such assurance, yet you cannot back it up.

Also, just to edify you, the number of species which have ever lived on our little planet is an unknown. The number of species which have gone extinct is an unknown. This is why we can only go to estimates.

And species extinction doesn’t have a boatload to do with the topic anyway.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Maybe, if you go back 3.5 billion years.

100% wrong.

Start over?

I'm referring to the creatures created in Genesis

Then you're in the wrong section of the board. You should be in the Rubber Room.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

You say 99.9999…% with such assurance, yet you cannot back it up.

I did? Did i click my spurs together, or do finger guns or something?

Nobody wants to hear a grown man whine.

Moving on...

 

[Woodznutz]

100% wrong.

That's what you quoted.