Can anyone help with this?

[Jadeite]

I'm engaged in a debate about evolution on another forum, and someone copy pasted this as their argument. I know it's bullshit, but I have no idea on how to go about refuting it. Any help would be appreciated.

According to leading evolutionists, our galaxy is around 10 billion years old. One of the questions that arise from this assertion is “How could earth have survived for so long?” For example, the magnetic field surrounding the earth is rapidly disintegrating. In the last 1,000 years, our magnetic field’s energy has been diminishing at a rate of 2.7 percent. At this current rate, the earth could not have upheld its magnetic field for billions of years (Humphreys). Instead, if one “extrapolates backwards, even to 20,000 BC, the magnetic field would have been so strong Earth would have been like a star and nothing could have lived here. Extrapolating further back, it would have been so strong it would have crushed the surface of the Earth in on itself” (http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/youngearth.shtml). This information suggests a young earth, one that is hardly billions of years old. When one looks even more closely at nature, anomalies exist that evolution does not account for. If the world is billions of years old like evolutionists suggest, then there is neither enough mud on the sea floor nor enough sodium in the oceans. There is an typical depth of 400 meters of mud on the entire ocean floor, which also incorporates the continental shelves. Plate tectonic subduction is the chief way known to eliminate this mud that collects on the ocean floor. In other words, sediment is caught by the sea floor that gradually moves under the continents (only a couple of centimeters per year). This slight movement is thought to eradicate only 1 billion tons every year. So 24 billion tons of the estimated figure of 25 billion tons of dirt and rock that are annually worn and dropped in the ocean by water and winds is thought to simply gather on the ocean floor. According to this data, 12 million years is all that is needed for erosion to amass the 400 meters of mud that is now present, but evolutionists state that both erosion and plate subduction have been operating since the ocean was born, over 3 billion years ago. If this were correct, the mud at the bottom of the ocean should be several kilometers deep.
The other inconsistency of evolution with nature is the fact that there is not nearly enough salt in the ocean for it to be 3 billion years old. Four hundred and fifty million tons of sodium leaks into the ocean by way of rivers and other causes. Sodium then leaves the ocean at a rate of 27 percent. The rest of it is considered to build up in the ocean. Supposing the ocean contained no sodium when it formed and the rates of output and input remained the same, the amount of sodium present today could have been collected in less than 42 million years. This is a far cry from 3 billion years. Even in the light of lower input rates and greater output rates, adapted to evolutionary circumstances, 62 million years is the oldest age that can be given to the ocean. Similar logic can be used on other water elements, and the results turn out the same. The ocean simply can not be 3 billion years old (Humphreys).
Another bridge evolutionists have not been able to cross is the lack of transitional forms in the fossil world. Even if there a few disputable fossils that indicate abnormalities in a species, one should think that there would be thousands upon thousands of such missing links. “We should be stumbling over them every time we step out into the open” (Parker 402). This is without even mentioning the doubt that accompanies the thought that one kind of animal is capable of gradually evolving into another, while maintaining structures adapted to survival. Bat wings are one example discrediting evolutionists who say that “bats evolved from small, four-legged, rodent-like mammals similar to modern shrews” (381-382) “Slight modifications” (381) slowly occurring over time would create a “deformed monstrosity,” incapable of surviving because “a shrew’s forepaws would become useless for grasping or running long before they would enable the creature to fly” (382). Yet another example shedding doubt on the possibility of gradual changes resulting in different species is the radical difference between amphibian and reptilian eggs. Evolutionists claim that reptiles developed from amphibians, but this proposes an insurmountable problem. Amphibians eggs are designed to live in an aquatic environment. Reptilian eggs, however, are suited to a terrestrial environment where, of course, they are laid. Amphibian “eggs are jelly-like, with a transparent and permeable membrane” while reptilian eggs or amniotic eggs have a “hard shell” which “allows air in, but is impermeable to water” (Yahya). Without water, amphibian eggs undoubtedly would dry out before ever having the chance to hatch. In order for reptiles to have evolved from amphibians, the change from amphibians to reptiles would have had to have taken place within one generation. To explain these missing links and implausible gaps, some evolutionists have turned to the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis. This idea proposes that “evolutionary change is not constant but that speciation may occur rapidly and the species then change little for long periods of time” (http://www.wiki.cotch.net/wiki.phtml/?t ... equilibria). This requires an even greater amount of faith to accept as it lies entirely “beyond the realm of science” (Parker 391) because it has never been “observed either in nature or in the laboratory” (368) and has no reliable means of being tested.
Evolutionists attempt to reduce their circular reasoning in dating fossils by measuring fossils’ ages using radiometric dating. However, the dates acquired by radiometric dating are fundamentally dependent on the belief assumed by the person in charge of dating a fossil. Radiometric dating involves the element carbon-14, which is thought to “decay
into other elements at a relatively constant rate.” If the initial and ultimate amount of an element in sample is known, the half-life of an element is often used to measure the age of a rock or fossil. The problem is that the original amount of the element cannot be measured. Scientists attempt to solve it by making guesses on the amount of the daughter element in the original sample, the amount of the parent element that escaped or entered “during the decay process,” and the amount of the daughter element that entered or escaped “during the decay process.” The person doing the measuring can adjust the age of his sample according to his presupposition, which leaves the obvious question, “Is radiometric dating really accurate (Steele 277-288)?”

That's part of a research paper my sister wrote.

[Raven]

I think it's funny how he assumes things like the Earth's magnetic field and concentrations of sodium in the ocean are changing at a constant rate, then claims physical constants like radioactive decay are variable.

[Quadlok]

What a moron.

First, there is conclusive evidence from the study of various sorts of rocks that the Earth's magnetic field reverses regularly, and that this is proceeded by a period of reduced strength.

Secondly, mud and other sediments can turn into rock! Doesn't this moron realize where shale and limestone come from?

Third, just because salt is coming out of the ocean at a certain rate now does not mean it was always thus. And ask where he got those figures and where the salt goes, while you're at it.

Forth, fossils require special conditions to even form, and thus only a very small portion of what dies makes it to being a fossil. That said, their are many transitional fossils, such as Archeoptyrix or Austrolopithicus (don't hold me to spellings), and even current animals, such as the lung fish, that show how these transitions occcur.

Fifth, is it so hard to imagine a species of ancient amphibian living in seasonal marsh land that would self select over the years for ever thicker, more impermiable membranes on their eggs? It isn't like we're talking about plopping some bullfrogs in the Gobi Desert, here.

Sixth, he obviously has no idea how radiometric dating is done. Carbon 14 is useless past around 50 thousand years, so many other isotopes are used as well. Since radioactive decay is constant, and the levels of a given isotope can be accurately guessed by where the fossil is foud, this method is accurate enough. It doesn't allow you to say 'this animal died on a tuesday afternoon,' but it gives you a ballpark figure of a few to a few million years.

[Braedley]

This Humphreys guy the poster's refering to is an even bigger idiot than the poster. Not only has the magnetic field been switching every (IIRC) several tens of thousands of years, but we're also supposedly coming up on another switch (within like a thousand years), which is the primary reason for the decrease in earth's magnetic field.

Another thing is that Earth is cyclic in nature. Populations of wild animals rise and fall (usually) on a multi anual basis, the tides rise and fall on a daily basis, hell, temperatures rise and fall on a daily, weekly, yearly, and millenial basis. This is the main reason that up until about a year ago, I wasn't overly concerned with Global Warming. I imagine the same is true for things like salt in the sea. What a moron.

[Spectre]

Re: Accumulation of sodium in the ocean;

Item 4, metals in the ocean

And as for all that bollux on carbon-14 dating... here's a favorite link of mine, cuz the dude that wrote it is a christian. Fight fire with fire I say...

I'd hate to think that guys sister got a passing grade for that research paper. Even if it was in something like theology. If any respectable institution is teaching that level of scientific inaccuracy, I'm pretty sure the human race is doomed...

[wolveraptor]

For example, the magnetic field surrounding the earth is rapidly disintegrating...Extrapolating further back, it would have been so strong it would have crushed the surface of the Earth in on itself.

Bullshit. The Earth's magnetic field shows decay during periods between magnetic flips, when the polarity of N and S switch. These can be observed by dark-colored bands in magnetic rocks. Furthermore, I am not aware of how magnetism can crush the surface of a planet.

If the world is billions of years old like evolutionists suggest, the mud at the bottom of the ocean should be several kilometers deep.

It is. However, most of it has been crushed into rock by the enormous amount above it. We call that, the tectonic plate.

The other inconsistency of evolution with nature is the fact that there is not nearly enough salt in the ocean for it to be 3 billion years old.

Prove that the rate of salt deposition has always been uniform. Prove that the rate of salt eradication has always been uniform. I demand that your sources come from a scientifically peer-reviewed geologic journal.

And of course, he has to beat the dead horse of transitional fossils. We have observed creatures evolving in laboratories. We have fossils of Archaeopteryx, Australopithecus, several forms of Devonian amphibians, lobe-finned fish, the first chorodates, early whales, members of canoidea such as bear-dogs, several bird forms of the Cretaceous, and that's off the top of my head. We have all this, despite the fact that fossilization is extremely rare, and that punctuated equilibrium means that evolution occurs fairly quickly, giving us a short window of time for fossilization to occur.

Bat wings may have been used to capture numerous mosquito-like insects (they were insectivores after all). Furthermore, all bats still have hands and claws at the end of their wings, allowing them to climb and move normally. These first insect-net wings may also have been used to adjust jumping from tree to tree. As jumps became more precise and longer, the wings became better and better developed.

The real difference between amphibians and reptiles is that that reptiles are amniotes; they've developed an amniotic sac in which their young develop. This amounts, essentially, to an amphibian egg inside something else. For mammals, the young develop in the amniotic sac, which stays inside the mother for the full period of gestation. For reptiles, it is expelled in hard egg.

Originally, amphibian males only got to jerk off to a pile of eggs that the female left. Not very fun, eh? As resources dwindled and competition increased in the shallow ponds where these entirely aquatic creatures lived, it became evolutionarily advantageous for the male to fertilize as many eggs as possible. Producing ova takes a considerable deal of energy, and it isn’t to be wasted. Males that did their business quickly, before all the eggs settled, fertilized more than just those on the top, like their predecessors. These males also began to develop longer…things to eject the sperm from, so as to reach more eggs underneath (thus triggering the development of the penis; yay penises!) Eventually it became imperative that males start the ejaculation sooner and sooner after the female’s menstruation, until they were practically doing it at the same time.

You have to understand that behaviors can be determined genetically, so the above situation is possible. Males that could do it sooner probably had the ability to, through more efficient gonads, or whatever.

Some males began sending sperm to the ova while they were still inside the female’s uterus. Voila – sex. Those males had gonads of just the right length could eject sperm into the majority of the eggs, thus ensuring a larger next generation (which, ironically, led to greater competition, and the need to travel to new lakes/ponds). That’s why you don’t find monster 10 inch schlongs very often – it really isn’t efficient in terms of fertilization.

Okay, we have sex down, so we can get on to the basics of the amniotic sac and the development of hard-shelled eggs. As I’ve stated before, competition in the water is getting unbearable; one difficulty is protecting the eggs. Protecting the young is virtually unheard of due to intelligence constraints, so the trick is to place the eggs where no one can get them. In the water, big, fast fish can gobble them up as fast as a greased jack rabbit on a hick’ry smoked sausage in lightning [/end Southernism], so amphibians began laying their eggs closer to shore, in very shallow water. However, other amphibians can still get them there, they needed someplace else. Eggs that had tougher coatings could stand just a little less humidity, maybe surviving in very damp areas. Eggs with still tougher coatings could stand less and less humidity, making them safer and safer as they went higher and higher on the bank. But what was used to toughen these eggs?

“But wait!” says YEC Ray Pemyass, “What about the amphibian life-cycle? Tadpoles can’t be on land.”

“You idiot,” says wolveraptor the incredibly awesome and wise, “by this time, amphibians were extremely terrestrial, like modern-day salamanders. Very little of their life-cycle was spent in the water, and in fact, it was far more dangerous in there, with all the other predators. Those that escaped the tadpole phase fastest won the evolutionary brawl. Eventually, tadpoles began developing legs inside the egg/proto-amniotic sac itself, hatching as cute lil’ Eyrops, or whatever.”

You have to remember that at each of these stages, there were creatures that progressed no further, but decided to remain in that niche. That’s why there are still amphibians. Only a small segment of any given population will make the evolutionary leap.

It's really hard to go over all the evolutionary steps that were taking place at this time at once, since there were so many, what with the penis and the legs and the skin and the reproductive system...
so forgive me if I messed up anywhere here.