Skeptic Project

http://creation.com/15-questions

So I read these questions while I was doing my AP Biology work; they made me so angry that I made this response to each question.



Answers to Creation Ministries International


1.
This question is irrelevant regarding evolution; evolution is the theory about how life changes over time, not how it originates. Evolution does imply that all life originated from a single common ancestor, but this is not an attempt to explain how the first organisms appeared. This is rather an attempt to describe the relationship between organisms and how they diversify.

2.
There is a leading hypothesis that early life consisted of an "RNA-world" where RNA was the genetic material. DNA, bound as a double helix, is much more stable and hardy than RNA and therefore may have arisen when RNA replication used DNA nucleotides rather than the usual RNA nucleotides. This would explain how DNA originated as the genetic material, and how RNA then adopted its role as an intermediate in one of DNA's functions, which is the production of proteins. In lieu of a magical spaghetti monster (i.e., God) designing the (flawed) code (which we cannot test for), this is a reasonably tenable hypothesis.

3.
Simply put: time. The rise from a simple cell to an incredibly (flawed) mass of cells constituting an organism takes time on a very large magnitude of measurement. In most cases, mutations do not do anything. Especially if they are certain kinds like base pair substitutions that do not harm protein synthesis or occur in DNA that repeats in the same nonsensical (in the context of its actual usage) pattern.

4.
This question is also irrelevant. Natural selection simply acts upon the naturally occurring mutation (and therefore, variation) in species. Nowhere in that is an explanation for how natural selection explains variation. This trite question is in ignorant spirit with the first question.

5.
(skipped for now, need hardcore information on hand rather than an understanding of concepts)

6.
This asinine question attempts to throw the onus on the scientists to disprove a creator, rather than for creationists to prove one. There are several observations that reject a creator in favor of evolution to explain the apparent design present in organisms. Firstly, there are (from a designer's standpoint) flaws in many organisms' design. The recurrent laryngeal nerve's pathway toward innervation and the vas deferens looping around the ureters rather than directly from the testicles to the urethra are two examples found in humans. Plant's inherent inability to balance carbon dioxide absorption with rate of transpiration (due to using only the stoma for both), and their ability to perform photorespiration when this occurs is another example of flawed "design". Evolution perfectly explains these phenomena however, when the historical context of these structures undergoes consideration.

7.
The leading hypothesis is that eukaryotes gathered in colonies, which over the course of countless years, grew more and more complex and gradually unable to survive as mere unicellular organisms.

8.
No, there are plenty of transitional fossils. This is an outright display of lying or woefully dreadful ignorance. Not only are there transitional fossils (the lineage of horses are a very good example), they are correctly found in the appropriate strata. If they were not, then evolution would be hard-pressed to explain such. Unfortunately for creationists, this has yet to happen.

9.
The principles of Hardy-Weinburg equilibrium can easily explain how species can persist for long periods of time without change. Usually however, species evolve into new species, or go extinct. This also can be explained in part, by Hardy-Weinburg principles. These are rather lengthy to explain, so I'll keep this answer abridged.

10.
(skipped for now)


11.
And biologists should give two shits about this philosophical question...... why? Strike that, let's go over some things first. Evolution does not explicitly teach that humans created God. It is not contradictory to believe evolution is a tool that God used to direct the diversity of life. A creator God can and may possibly exist; he just has to be a God that uses evolution. Life does not need a purpose to exist. The question is grammatically correct, but as needless and nonsensical as "what is the smell of red?" Or "what is the color of hate?"

13.
Evolution provides a solid and completely tenable explanation for life's diversity, change, etc. Seeing as how the next most well-known explanation for it is completely asinine, untenable, and inherently unscientific, evolution deserves time for teaching to address these aspects about life. Furthermore, this asinine theory (and I do mean creationism) would have to make up for these proposed pitfalls about evolution. His godly Noodleness doesn't seem to spur new breakthroughs in Medicine, Chemistry, and Physics very obviously at first.

14.
You cannot directly observe a subatomic particle. You cannot determine its precise location and precise speed simultaneously. This would have to undergo doubt following this question's logic, as would every science that has a large basis in observation. It is possible to observe microevolution; macroevolution merely requires time on a scale several magnitudes large.

15.
And finally, the shittiest question is up. If fossil rabbit skeletons were found in Precambrian-era strata, every biologist and biology classroom worth its salt would call evolution into serious doubt. No one would quietly hush away the occurrence, nor would they try to kill the discoverer. The "faith" of biologists in evolution is only as strong as the evidence for what they "believe." The quotation marks here note how inappropriate these terms are; support for a testable hypothesis backed by massive amounts of evidence (which would make said hypothesis a theory) is not faith at all, but scientific consensus.

Yeah, I fooled ya with the title, and I didn't respond to some questions because I wrote this in <10 minutes.

Hope you'll enjoy a young skeptic flexing his wings in his element.

Did I crash and burn?

Interesting stuff, though many in the creationist mold will continue to find flaws around it and twist their own logic to make sense to everyone else.