...This little list of questions floated across talk.atheism some point
in the distant past. It was framed as "20 questions evilutionists
are afraid to answer". (More likely, it should have
been called '20 questions evolutionists are too bored to answer',
but that's another debate)
...I hardly qualify myself as an expert on evolution or related studies
and the like, howsoever, I figured if I could come up with valid answers
as quickly as I did, I have to wonder how seriously the original person
was in his quest.
...Sadly, these questions are standard fare when it comes to the general
assault on evolution. And sadly, they can be answered almost trivially
by anyone with any knowledge of science. Most of them can be answered
in any 101 level course or with just a little thought.
...This particular list came from the Center for Scientific Creation,
a group in California dedicated to finding whatever flaws in evolution
they can. Usually these flaws are in their own thinking, but that does
not seem to stop them from spreading their peculiar version of the world
around and causing confusion and dissent from real, hard science... to
the detriment of our kids who lose out on the opportunity for a real science
education in school.
...One important thing to think about are the number of logical fallacies
committed throughout the question (see a description of logic
and logical fallacies). By misdirecting the questions and using faulty
logic, the questioner tries to confuse the answerer and the general reader,
hoping to improve his position. Being aware of the tactic significantly
diminishes the strength of the argument.
...So below are the questions, and the next page has my
answers
.
20 Questions for Evolutionists
- 1. Where has macro evolution ever been observed?
- - What's the mechanism for getting new complexity
such as new vital organs?
- How, for example, could a caterpillar
evolve into a butterfly?
- 2. Where are the
billions of transitional fossils that should be there if your theory
is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don't
we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or
in the fossil record, or both?
3. Who are the evolutionary ancestors of
the insects?
- - The evolutionary
tree that's in the textbook: where's its trunk and where are its branches?
- 4. What evidence
is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble
itself?
- - What about the
4000 books of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your
100 trillion cells?
- If astronomers received an intelligent
radio signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that
it came from an intelligent source. Why then doesn't the vast information
sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacteria also imply an intelligent
source?
- 5. How could organs
as complicated as the eye or the ear or the brain of even a tiny bird
ever come about by chance or natural processes?
- - How could a
bacterial motor evolve?
- 6. If the solar
system evolved, why do three planets spin backwards? Why do at least
6 moons revolve backwards?
7. Why do we have comets if the solar system
is billions of years old?
8. Where did all the helium go?
9. How did sexual reproduction evolve?
10. If the big bang occurred, where did
all the information around us and in us come from? Has an explosion
ever produced order? Or as Sir Isaac Newton said, "Who wound up
the clock?"
11. Why do so many of the earth's ancient
cultures have flood legends?
12. Where did matter come from? What about
space, time, energy, and even the laws of physics?
13. How did the first living cell begin?
That's a greater miracle than for a bacteria to evolve to a man. How
did that first cell reproduce?
14. Just before life appeared, did the
atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen?
15. Why aren't meteorites found in supposedly
old rocks?
16. If it takes intelligence to make an
arrowhead, why doesn't it take vastly more intelligence to create a
human?
- - Do you really
believe that hydrogen will turn into people if you wait long enough?
- 17. Which came
first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA -- which can only be produced
by DNA?
18. Can you name one reasonable hypothesis
on how the moon got there -- any hypothesis that is consistent with
all the data?
- - Why aren't students
told the scientific reasons for rejecting all the evolutionary theories
for the moon's origin?
- 19. Why won't
qualified evolutionists enter into a written, scientific debate?
20. Would you like to explain the origin
of any of the following twenty-one features of the earth:
- o The Grand Canyon
and Other Canyons
o Mid-Oceanic Ridge
o Continental Shelves and Slopes
o Ocean Trenches
o Seamounts and Tablemounts
o Earthquakes
o Magnetic Variations on the Ocean Floor
o Submarine Canyons
o Coal and Oil Formations
o Glaciers and the Ice Ages
o Frozen Mammoths
o Major Mountain Ranges
o Overthrusts
o Volcanoes and Lava
o Geothermal Heat
o Metamorphic Rock
o Strata
o Plateaus
o Salt Domes
o Jigsaw Fit of the Continents
o Fossil Graveyards
Check out my answers.
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