...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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