enemigo

I'm debating against someone about evolution, and he is bringing out the usual drivel such as no transitional fossils, just a theory, etc....

This is part of his argument, and this part seems to be just a basic irreducible complexity argument.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.


richard

KC

Ask him to show you his math, where all this is proven "mathematically impossible".

Cheers,

KC

Hallucigenia

Incorrect. Darwin's theory centered on organisms, not specialized cells. He made no mention of the complexity, or lack thereof, of said cells.

Except no one who understands evolution argues that it happens by chance; it doesn't. Mutations may arise by "chance" (by which, it is not meant that all mutations are equally probable, but rather the mechanisms for producing specific mutations, at specific points, are somewhat chaotic in nature, thus difficult to model with any accuracy), but the subsequent selection processes are dependent on prevailing conditions.

And complexity does not preclude naturalistic mechanisms. Even IDer Phillip Johnson admits as much.

Sounds more like ignorance of fossilization / taphonomy and funding for such explorations than it does a valid critique against evolution.

Peez

As has been pointed out, this is false. Darwin formulated the theory of evolution to deal with the evolution of organisms. It is worth pointing out that even if the theory of evolution by mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift was shown to be false, the fact of common descent would remain. You don't need an electron microscope to see that a cell is more complex than a "glob of carbon jelly". He should make up his mind, did Darwin think that cells were as complex as a glob of carbon jelly, or did he know about cell walls and nuclei. You might point out to him that not all cells have a cell wall, and I have no idea what the "gel" is with cell wall and nucleus. Not necessarily true, but cells certainly are complex and could easily dies if any one of many critical things was changed. Of course, cells do die from time to time. You might point out that the first cells were almost certainly much simpler than the cells that we see today, but more importantly that the origin of cells is not part of the theory of evolution. Abiogenesis is the study of the origin of life. Typical creationist non- sequitur. Evolution does not address the origin of life, and anyways nothing that he has said here proves that abiogenesis by natural means is mathematically impossible. I agree, ask him to show how this probability was calculated. Let him. There is ample rope there for him to hang himself. This is just too moronic for words. He seems to be suggesting that because fossils are hard to find then evolution cannot be true. Fossils are hard to find because their formation is a rare event, they must then survive geological forces, then they must find their way to the surface (or nearly so), and then they have to survive weathering, and finally someone who is looking for fossils has to find it. It is amazing that any are found!

Peez

ps418

Indeed, do check it out. Also check out this review of Wells' book, which shows it to contain many misleading, if not deliberately deceptive, claims about the evidence for evolution. And this is touted as the top of the line in Antidarwinism. . . <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/" target="_blank">Icon of Obfuscation: Jonathan Wells' book Icons of Evolution and why most of what it teaches about evolution is wrong</a>

Patrick

enemigo

Thank you all for your help... His responses have been the usual creationist garbage of saying that Darwinism is just chance, or that the transitional fossils I showed him are evidence of extinction rather than evolution. He says that almost all evolutionists are abandoning Darwin's theory but can't give me any names.

But what takes the cake is this..

I asked him if he understands the significance of the geological column, and why the oldest rocks only contain the simplest organisms, why there are no homo sapiens fossils in rocks from the same geological period as dinosaurs, is it just coincidence, etc... and he responds with this:

"I hate answering a question with a question but here goes: Did you know that all of our planets are on the exact same plane except for Pluto? The whole planetary system would collapse if one single planet's orbit crossed another planet's. It would collapse because they would collide. So how by chance did all of the planets end up on the same plane, rotating in their own orbit, without crossing another planet's orbit? Pluto is the only exception. It's on a 14 degree angle from the plane. Why?"

I know he is just appealing to ignorance, but can anyone give me any information on this?


richard

Hallucigenia

Personally, I would refuse to answer his question until he answered yours first. But, here are some links regarding current hypotheses about the formation of our solar system:

<a href="http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/origin.html" target="_blank">http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/origin.html</a>

<a href="http://www.psi.edu/projects/planets/planets.html" target="_blank">http://www.psi.edu/projects/planets/planets.html</a>

<a href="http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/solar_system/section3.3.html" target="_blank">http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/solar_system/section3.3.html</a>

<a href="http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/solarsys/nebular.html" target="_blank">http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/solarsys/nebular.html</a>

Here is a link which deals with the whole trans-Neptunian region:

<a href="http://www.nas.edu/ssb/neptch2.htm#plu" target="_blank">http://www.nas.edu/ssb/neptch2.htm#plu</a>

Little is known about Pluto in general, largely because no spacecraft has yet visited the planet. Do not let this guy use this fact as evidence of anything beyond our lack of knowledge of Pluto. It has nothing to do with your question, nothing to do with evolution.

Peez

Note that he did not answer a question with a question, he evaded a question with a question.

Peez

Clutch

Enemigo,

(1) Insist on an answer to your excellent question. Your creationist has not answered with a *relevant* question of his own; he's just transparently tried to evade something devastating to this view, plain and simple.

(2) As I understand it, the planets are formed out of the cast-offs of the big, flattish, disc of material that went on to coalesce into the Sun. That's why their orbits are *fairly* close to the plane of the ecliptic, though your creationist is just wrong about their being all on "the exact same plane", since there are slight deviations apart from Pluto's. It's also why the plane of the ecliptic is *fairly* close to the plane of the Sun's equator, ie, around 7 degrees off.

(3) Lots of bodies travel in our solar system at random angles to the ecliptic, chunks of iron and ice and schmutz that are just passing through or have been more recently captured by the sun's gravity, orbiting at whatever angle they please, relative to the planets. Which is why they do indeed smack into the planets constantly. So if the plane of the ecliptic was supposed to indicate benevolent design, what explains comets and asteroids -- sin?

Fer Pete's sake!

Badfish

This topic will NEVER be proven, evolution is too incomplete for it to be a 100% truth.

I believe in the end even Darwin realized that it just couldn't be proven thoroughly.

Wasn't Darwin a believer in creation in the end?

NO ONE will ever win this debate, supposed transitional fossils could be just as easily extinct fossils.

Fossils are completely valid, even if the earth is only 15,000 years old or less, there just isn't enough proof, it is just a theory, an unproven theory.

Does anyone really believe we were one celled organisms? This so extremely unlikely that it makes creation look WAY more plausable.