Creationist Arguments (funny as hell)

[Sir Sirius]

Somehow, I think that this is going to be fun to watch...

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

As I said that was an exerpt. The whole paper will incompass every aspect of evolution I can think of.

Okay, so you're singlehandedly going to disprove the accepted scientific model for the development of life on this planet, where literally dozens (hundreds?) of creationists before you have attempted it and failed miserably.

How fucking arrogant can you get?

And you have yet to answer the question: do you believe that invalidating the evolution model will lend any credibility whatsoever to a theologically-based origins model? If so, how?

[Wicked Pilot]

Given, the embryos of animal do bear some resemblance in their early stages. However when looking at it from a design standpoint this makes sense. To create or make anything you start with a basic form and gradually add more and more specialized detail. Some scientific principles known as von Baer's laws express this concept in terms of embryonic development.

Wow, thanks for providing evidence for evolution. That was your intention was it not? Either way, you seriousily need to go back and rethink this bullshit of yours. We have small tolerations for stupidity over here and you will be no exception. Have a nice day.

[neoolong]

Considering that neither argument is used in that form anymore to support evolution and have been refined or already discredited by evolutionists, I fail to see how they disprove anything about evolution.

And of course he picks the argument about embryo similarity that has already been disproven. Not the one current one.

[Darth Wong]

I'm currently working on a paper to show the scientific evidance against evolution.

First you must demonstrate that you have satisfactory comprehension of what the scientific method is, since your first excerpt provides little hope in that regard.

Argument 1: Similarities Between Embryos

This argument is based on a fraud. A fraud populated by it's inventor Ernst Haeckel, a German scientist in the late 1860s. Haeckel published his "findings" in 1868. Within months the University of Basel's professor of zoology and comparative anatomy, L. Rtimeyer, with corroboration from a famous comparative embryologist, William His Sr., professor of anatomy at the University of Leipzig showed Haeckel's work to be fraudulent. Haeckel had drawn the embryos in such a way as to make them look more similar to each other then they really were. He even reprinted some of the woodcuts and then said they were the embryos of different species! Despite all this Haeckel's drawings are still used in science books today!

So you are seriously arguing that there is no embryonic homology, even though we no longer rely on these pictures and have actual PHOTOGRAPHS showing these similarities?

In 1997 it was revealed by embryologist Dr. Michael Richardson, with the cooperation of biologists around the world that Haeckel's fraud was even worse then previously thought. Dr. Richardson and the biologists in league with him collected and photographed the embryos that Haeckel had supposedly drawn. He found that Haeckel's drawings had very little resemblance at all to the actual embryos! Richardson said (as quoted by The Times [London]):

"This is one of the worst cases of scientific fraud. It's shocking to find that somebody one thought was a great scientist was deliberately misleading. It makes me angry. What he [Haeckel] did was to take a human embryo and copy it, pretending that the salamander and the pig and all the others looked the same at the same stage of development. They don't. These are fakes."¹

In other words, "look, I found an example of an individual scientist more than 100 years ago who was dishonest. Therefore, creation." Please refresh my memory: were you trying to disprove our characterizations of the weakness of creationist arguments, or support them?

Please look up "hasty generalization" fallacy in a textbook sometime.

Given, the embryos of animal do bear some resemblance in their early stages. However when looking at it from a design standpoint this makes sense. To create or make anything you start with a basic form and gradually add more and more specialized detail. Some scientific principles known as von Baer's laws express this concept in terms of embryonic development.

In other words, "things grow in stages, therefore creation".

You're really quite amusing. Yes, things are designed in stages, but creation theory requires that the entire organism was designed thousands of years ago, rather than being designed in stages during embryonic development in the womb!

Namely that the younger the embryonic stage, the more closely organisms tend to resemble each other. However even von Baer's laws are a little outdated as stated in this quote:

"Von Baer's laws differ profoundly from Haeckel's. Indeed, von Baer formulated his generalizations precisely in opposition to the sort of recapitulation Haeckel favored. In any case, neither von Baer's laws, nor Haeckel's, are reliable generalizations today about the patterns of metazoan ontogeny. Looking simply within the vertebrates, for instance, the earliest stages of development are strikingly different (e.g., between an amphibian, a chick, and a mammal)."²

In other words, "I found an old scientific theory which is no longer accepted. Therefore, creation."

This is just too easy. Pointing out that there are some structural differences between different branches on the evolutionary tree is one of the weakest attempts to attack evolution that I've seen yet.

Argument 2: The Peppered Moths

The story of England's Peppered Moth is an evolutionary classic. It is also an evolutionary myth. The story of the peppered moth goes as follows. The moth comes in two variations. A light colored one, and a dark colored one. The pollution from the Industrial Revolution had darkened the color of the tree trunks by killing the light-colored covering called lichen and dusting the trees in soot. The lighter variety which was well camouflaged against the light-colored tree trunks now stands out. This makes them more visible to birds who readily eat them. For this reason the population of the dark-colored moths skyrockets. After the pollution was cleaned up the light-colored moth again becomes more prevalent. This shift is moth numbers was documented carefully by catching the moths in tarps. Release-recapture experiments have shown that in polluted forests the dark moths are more prevalent and vice versa. There where also tapes showing birds selectively eating the less camouflaged moths off of tree trunks. This was met with much excitement from the evolutionist community. H.B. Kettlewell who performed most of the experiments at the time said that if Darwin had seen this, "He would have witnessed the consummation and confirmation of his life's work."³ Even as the textbook story goes it demonstrates nothing more then gene frequencies shifting back and forth, by natural selection within one created kind.

In other words, "it did not evolve even though it met the textbook definition of evolution, because it only evolved a little bit." As I said, you're really making this too easy.

It shows nothing that, even given millions of years could add the sort of complex design information needed for Macro-evolution.

Please define the "complex design information needed for macro-evolution". Since the actual evolution theory requires no such thing, you seem to have fabricated a fictional requirement in order to show that it has not been met.

L. Harrison Matthews, a biologist so distinguished that he was asked to write the forward for the 1971 edition of Darwin's Origin of Species, said that the peppered moth example showed natural selection, but not "evolution in action."

And he would be wrong, since NATURAL SELECTION IS EVOLUTION. The fact that some publisher asked him to write a forward hardly makes him infallible.

However none of that really matters as the peppered moth story contains more holes then a strainer. Peppered moths don't rest on trees during the day! Kettlewell and others attracted the moths into traps but using either light or female pheromones. In either case, they only flew in at night! So where do the moths rest during the day? In response to this question British scientist Cyril Clarke, who investigated the peppered moth extensively, wrote:

"But the problem is that we do not know the resting sites of the moth during the day time... In 25 years we have found only two betularia [scientific name] on the tree trunks or walls adjacent to our traps (one on an appropriate background, and one not), and none elsewhere."4

The moths that were taped as they were consumed by the birds were laboratory- bred ones placed on the tree trunk by Kettlewell; they were so languid that he once had to warm them up on the hood of his car.5 And as for all of the photos of the moths on tree trunks, dead moths were glued to the tree!6 Biologist Theodore Sargent of the University of Massachusetts even helped glue moths onto trees for a NOVA documentary. Here is another interesting little flaw. When one group of researchers glued dead moths onto trees in an unpolluted forest the birds ate the less camouflaged dark moths as expected. But their traps captured four times as many dark moths as light ones. This is a complete contradiction to textbook predictions Even evolutionists have to (and do) agree that this fraudulent myth needs thrown out. Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago refers to the peppered moth story as "the prize horse in our stable" but agrees it must be thrown out for what it is, a fraud.

1. N. Hawkes, The Times (London), August 11, 1997, p. 14
2. Paul Nelson at http://origins.swau.edu/q&a/evol/questions/q2.html. See Raff, R. 1996. The Shape of Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. or the latest edition of Scott Gilbert's developmental biology text, and the literature cited therein.
3. Evolution and the Fossil Record, Readings from Scientific America, "Darwin's Missing Evidence," H.B. Kettlewell (San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1978), p. 23.
4. C.A. Clarke, G.S. Mani, and G. Wynne, "Evolution in Reverse: Clean Air and the Peppered Moth", Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 26:189-199, 1985; quote on p. 197.
5. Calgary Harold, March 21, 1999, p. D3.
6. D.R. Lees and E.R. Creed, "Industrial Melanism in Biston Betularia: The Role of Selective Predation," Journal of Animal Ecology 44:67-83, 1975.

Very cute, but if you go back and read the message to which you replied, you will see that your entire argument was already addressed. You committed the exact fallacy that I predicted you would use: you said, in essence, "I found an individual scientist who committed a fraud many decades ago, therefore creation."

It doesn't matter if a particular theory for the mechanism of peppered moth evolution (actually one of MANY observed examples of evolution, despite your fraudulent implication that it's the only one) was supported with fraudulent research and shown to be bunk; the fact still remains that natural selection WAS shown to occur, as you concede yourself.

Next time, try thinking for yourself instead of copying and pasting from creationist websites. Oops, did I let your secret out of the bag?

[God Emperor]

I wish to enter into the record an article from Free Inquiry Magazine

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/ ... n_21_3.htm

*snip*

I've heard some people actually say it didn't rain before the flood, and that they got their water from dew on the ground.

[Alyrium Denryle]

But the same process that forms rain(condensation(sp)) also allows dew to form...

[1SuprJesusFreak]

I'm currently working on a paper to show the scientific evidance against evolution. Here is an excerpt that addresses those two topics.

<snip excerpt from your paper>

Unfortunately, that excerpt doesn't qualify as scientific evidence AGAINST evolution. All you've done is show that certain popularly accepted pieces of evidence FOR evolution happen to be wrong. This does nothing at all to shift the remaining mountain of evidence for evolution by natural selection, and does, if possible, even less to prove Creationism. You could, in fact, overturn every last shred of evidence for Darwinism tomorrow and STILL not prove Creationism (especially since intelligent design is basically evolutionary theory with God tacked on at the beginning and for Biblical literalist Creationism to be true you'd first have to disprove much of biology, geology, hydrology, meteorology, astronomy, cosmology, chemistry, history, paleontology, and nuclear physics just to make it POSSIBLE, and you'd still have no specific evidence FOR it).

Understand this: Creationism is NOT the default theory. You have ZERO proof for the existence of God and until such time such proof exists, any "theory" which requires His intervention, even if it takes all evidence into account, will be inferior to any theory that does not require God or some other unprovable element and does not contradict the evidence. You can overturn evolution tomorrow and you'd still be left with the task of actually proving Creationism, rather than some hitherto unimagined but scientifically and objectively verifiable mechanism, accurately explains the origins of life on Earth. Attacking evolution to prove Creationism is a fool's errand on multiple levels.

No it's not scientific evidence. Shuting down a fraud does not require scientific evidence. There is however scientific evidence for Creation. It wouldn't matter if I can't completely prove Creation, you can't completely prove evolution either. Yes you are right, Creation is not the default. There are just too many things evolution cannot explain, that is why it is not solid enough for me. Creation can explain everything.

[Alyeska]

There is however scientific evidence for Creation. It wouldn't matter if I can't completely prove Creation.

Bull fucking shit.

[Daltonator]

Creation can explain everything.

Of course creation can explain everything, because that's how it's defined. "Who made the universe?" "God." There's no thinking about it, no need (nor use) for scientific evidence, because it is faith and not science that it's based on.

[RedImperator]

No it's not scientific evidence. Shuting down a fraud does not require scientific evidence. There is however scientific evidence for Creation. It wouldn't matter if I can't completely prove Creation, you can't completely prove evolution either. Yes you are right, Creation is not the default. There are just too many things evolution cannot explain, that is why it is not solid enough for me. Creation can explain everything.

Then bring forth the evidence. Show me one scrap, one particle, one whisper of clue that an omnipotent diety created the universe. Forget evolution--just show me one piece of ANYTHING that is positive proof of Creation.

[DPDarkPrimus]

There is however scientific evidence for Creation.

You keep saying it, but you need to back your words up with some fucking evidence.

[Ghost Rider]

There is however scientific evidence for Creation. It wouldn't matter if I can't completely prove Creation.

I don't believe you quite grasp... the scientific method.

[Yuri Prime]

No it's not scientific evidence. Shuting down a fraud does not require scientific evidence. There is however scientific evidence for Creation. It wouldn't matter if I can't completely prove Creation, you can't completely prove evolution either. Yes you are right, Creation is not the default. There are just too many things evolution cannot explain, that is why it is not solid enough for me. Creation can explain everything.

Gee Matt, I hope this scientific evidence is going to be in your paper (if you're even really writing it), because there certainly isn't any here. Also you're begining to make Evil Grey look smart...

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

No it's not scientific evidence. Shuting down a fraud does not require scientific evidence. There is however scientific evidence for Creation. It wouldn't matter if I can't completely prove Creation, you can't completely prove evolution either. Yes you are right, Creation is not the default. There are just too many things evolution cannot explain, that is why it is not solid enough for me. Creation can explain everything.

Typical creationist tactic: mutilate science and drag Evolution into a so-called same state of Creation

No I don't. Of the two theories for life on earth (Creation and evolution) one is right (or closer to being right) and the other is not. It is impossible to completely disprove either theory, but it is possible to show that one is more likely then the other. I am trying to show the overwhelming evidence of Creation (which you are apparently not formiliar with) and the evidence against evolution, showing it to be the less likely story.

Oh yes, show the evidence, and then show who created life, there are lots of candidates out there, too.

And no, there is no such thing as a "Creation Theory".

[JodoForce]

The sad part of this is that he just might get an A for his paper from his 'science' teacher (or his religious studies teacher, who knows?? ) and he'll forget all about us and wave his paper around and convince a few more people in his class.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Matt I see a lot of posturng, saying you have evidence, and butchering the scientific method(something you cant seem to grasp) Back up your statements with evidence.

We do have an *Official* Sticky for this debate, let's us it.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

The sad part of this is that he just might get an A for his paper from his 'science' teacher (or his religious studies teacher, who knows?? ) and he'll forget all about us and wave his paper around and convince a few more people in his class.

I'm willing to bet that it's a religious studies/theology class of some type. We had a few creationists in my high school Biology class, and not one of them was quite stupid enough to jeapordize their GPA by putting their stupidity in writing.

[JodoForce]

Don't they have science teachers teaching creationism in some schools?

[Alyrium Denryle]

I am not sure, but I dont think he is in a public school.

[JodoForce]

So do they have science teachers teaching creationism in public schools?

[neoolong]

So do they have science teachers teaching creationism in public schools?

It's happened. But I think it's pretty rare. Though it tends to pop up in certain parts of the country.

[JodoForce]

So it happens more often in private schools?

[Yuri Prime]

I am not sure, but I dont think he is in a public school.

He's homeschooled.

[neoolong]

So it happens more often in private schools?

Since they're allowed to teach religion, I'd say so.