Ten reasons why creation scientists don't believe in evolution

[Skomatth]

I have some trouble understanding evolution, but admittedly I have never studied it in depth. In order to understand better, I am going to post some objection of creation scientists which I hope someone can try to refute from the evolutionist perspective. Do not construe this post as my acceptance of creationism, which I do not adhere to, but merely as an attempt to better understand evolution.

The ten objections along with their brief explanations are found http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=813053

Here are the objections in short:

1. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.

2. Natural selection (the supposed evolution mechanism, along with mutations) is incapable of advancing an organism to a "higher-order".

3. Although evolutionists state that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world.


4. The supposed hominids (creatures in-between ape and human that evolutionists believe used to exist) bones and skull record used by evolutionists often consists of 'finds' which are thoroughly unrevealing and inconsistent. They are neither clear nor conclusive even though evolutionists present them as if they were.

5. Nine of the twelve popularly supposed hominids are actually extinct apes/monkeys and not part human at all.

I only posted the five I'm interested in hearing answers to since the rest are rather goofy.

[GodsPetMonkey]

1. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.

All species are transitory. The transitory species idea was one sf the first anti-evolution to come out, but it fails to take into account that evolution is an ongoing and continuing process, it doesn't pause.

2. Natural selection (the supposed evolution mechanism, along with mutations) is incapable of advancing an organism to a "higher-order".

Natural selection is not the ONLY way of advancement (its like these creationists are stuck in the 1850's!). It's part of a much more complex picture.

3. Although evolutionists state that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world.

Life from non-life, etc is not something I'm going to touch, for personal belief reasons, but I will say this, their attempts to use the laws of thermodynamics to disprove it are incorrect (this is also known as the entropy argument).

As for humans coming from animals... what’s their point? Are they affronted by the idea that they are just another kind of animal?

4. The supposed hominids (creatures in-between ape and human that evolutionists believe used to exist) bones and skull record used by evolutionists often consists of 'finds' which are thoroughly unrevealing and inconsistent. They are neither clear nor conclusive even though evolutionists present them as if they were.

Fossils tend not to come out of the ground in good condition, there are not that many great dinosaur skeletons.
I don’t know much more about them, these kinds of skeletons are extremely rare, its inevitable that some science reporters, and over eager scientists will make something out of nothing.

5. Nine of the twelve popularly supposed hominids are actually extinct apes/monkeys and not part human at all.

Wow, the species of animals on the evolutionary path from ape to human are apes? Now that's a leap of logic. Next you know people will claim we are primates!

[Steppe Merc]

1. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.

False. What is transitional anyway? You can see evolution in action everyday, and natrual selection. Ever breed horses or dogs, or hear about different strands of bacteria that are resitant to medicine? That's natrual selection.

2. Natural selection (the supposed evolution mechanism, along with mutations) is incapable of advancing an organism to a "higher-order".

Higher order? Whatever that means, they obviously don't understand natrual selection.
Say you start out with a bird species. Somehow, two seperate groups of the bird get seperated from each other. One on one island, the other on another, never mixing. Now, one island only has big seeds. The birds with small beaks would die off and starve, since they can't eat the seeds. The birds who through genetic mutation have larger beaks survive, and reproduce. The other island of birds continues to eat the same small seeds. Over time, the bird groups will become seperate species, as more and more mutations occur that would favor their environment. Evolution is very slow, and can result in evauntaully large changes, but it would take a very long time, and it would only look like large changes from viewing the whole process.

3. Although evolutionists state that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world.

Bull. Humans are animals, and we have genetic links to our relations.

4. The supposed hominids (creatures in-between ape and human that evolutionists believe used to exist) bones and skull record used by evolutionists often consists of 'finds' which are thoroughly unrevealing and inconsistent. They are neither clear nor conclusive even though evolutionists present them as if they were.

Oh, like these idiots are clear? Real scientists acknoledge them. So what are they? Fakes? They certaintly aren't human, or ape.

5. Nine of the twelve popularly supposed hominids are actually extinct apes/monkeys and not part human at all.

What idiots. Humans didn't evolve from today's apes per se. They evolved from a common ancestor. The some apes went one way, evauntually forming today's apes, while other apes went another, evautnaully evolving into today's humans. If they had any real proof, they would list the species, and why they believe they are apes or monkeys. And what about the other ones that they say aren't apes or monkeys?

[A.Saturnus]

1. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.

Every species is a transitional link in its own right. Of course, we do not have records for ALL transitions that ever occurred. All fossil records are based on unlikely circumstances so only a very tiny part of all creatures that ever lived are to be found as fossils. You cannot conclude from that that there is no evidence for evolution. A wide spectrum of findings support the theory of evolution.

2. Natural selection (the supposed evolution mechanism, along with mutations) is incapable of advancing an organism to a "higher-order".

In the contrary, it is very capable of advancing organisms. That's what selection is all about. However, the concept of higher-order organisms is very vague. Organisms get adapted to their surroundings, evolution knows no direction.

[/QUOTE]3. Although evolutionists state that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world.

No. The first lifeforms where very primitive chemical structures, it's unintelligible why it should be impossible fro them to have resulted from non-living structures. In fact, we know structures today that stand between life and non-life. Humans are only animals adapted to a certain biological niche. There's nothing in humans that isn't also in gradation present in some other animals. The claim that matter resulted from nothing is not part of evolution theory.

4. The supposed hominids (creatures in-between ape and human that evolutionists believe used to exist) bones and skull record used by evolutionists often consists of 'finds' which are thoroughly unrevealing and inconsistent. They are neither clear nor conclusive even though evolutionists present them as if they were.

Any evidence to back up this claim? What we know is that these bones are older than creationists say is possible and they are bones of hominids. Inconsistency in the geneology of humans - which is only a tiny part of evolution BTW - are far from surprising, given the scarceness of these findings.

5. Nine of the twelve popularly supposed hominids are actually extinct apes/monkeys and not part human at all.[QUOTE]

There are all primates, just like humans, only more primitive. Like our closest kin, the chimpansees. When precisely is something "part human"?

It seems to me that these objections go mostly along the line of "it can't be, it isn't so and it mustn't be". No real arguments. Saying that it's all impossible and all evolutionists are dirty liars is hardly scientifical.

[Steppe Merc]

But saying all creationists are dirty liars or misinformed is true.

[Don Corleone]

Actually, they have made 'life' from 'non-life'. I think somebody's actually made nucleotide chains by electrocuting seawater with massive amounts of static electrical charge (like repeated lightning strikes).

Creationism is a religious outlook. Creation science is neither: creationism, nor science, and it's where those claims really break down. God planted dinosaur bones out in Utah to test the Faithful... give me a freakin break.

The thing I find funny is if they would just calm down, and quit taking Genesis (one of two creation stories contained therin, btw, which was right?) they'd actually see that Genesis mirrors the more complete picture of what we've come to know about cosmology and evolution, which is now thought to be quantitized (rapid bursts of species diversification, with large stagnant periods in between).

[Templar Knight]

God planted dinosaur bones out in Utah to test the Faithful... give me a freakin break.

lmao

[hrvojej]

The points you ask about have already been addressed wel by others, so I'll just reiterate a few of them, and expand a bit on what has already been said.

One cannot view evolution as a dogma, or evolutionary thinking as a dogmatic one. Species did not evolve in the "God created this, and then God created that" fashion. It's a continuous process that usually takes many many generations of (more or less) gradual change, and the changes between generations (gene pools between generations, to be precise) are predominantly minuscule.

The creationist thinking in this matter reminds me of the arrow paradox. If you shoot an arrow, it travels from point A to point B. If at any given point in time you look at the arrow in a freeze frame manner, it's actually standing still. Now, you could claim that the arrow is not moving at all, since every time you get to look at it it's standing still, but does that mean that it's not really moving at all? It's the same thing with evolution and fossil record. What you get are the random snapshots ages apart, and just because you cannot see the whole picture in excruciating detail, does not mean it wasn't there. Besides, even if you could get a specimen from every generation, you'd still be in the dark about the actual change, since it's all about populations and not individual organisms. In other words, you'd have to sample an entire population of organisms, take into account what traits are heritable, which organisms and in what exent are going to transfer their genetic material to the next generation, which populations interbred or will interbreed at some point in future, etc. etc. You cannot take two random specimens that are separated by millions of years and exclaim that the link isn't there, and at the same time refuse to apply any deductive thinking in the process to boot.

Another pitfall of creationist thinking (and early evolutionists too to an extent), is impying that evolutionary change is goal-oriented. "It all lead to the evolution of humans" or "Evolution is progressive in that it creates 'higher' beings from 'lower' ones" are statements that show profound misunderstanding of evolution, biology, and natural sciences in general. There is no goal behind it, no intention, and no dogma either. Certain organisms just outreproduce their peers due to the set of everchanging circumstances that are acting upon the population at a given point in time - they did not intend to or want to or meant to do it.

And humans vs. animals etc. are just arbitrary categories we use to sort out things we observe. There are more issues with semantics than with anything else here. If we didn't call them that with those same words, or categorize them in this fashion, it wouldn't mean they were not there. Sure, we use some overarching characteristics to help us sort everything out, but system is not and was never meant to be absolute. It just helps us think - if I say "fish", you'll have a general idea of what I'm talking about. Just because early amphibians cannot quite be described by the image I invoke in you when I say "fish" does not mean they are impossible or unreal. Also, for reference on life vs. non-life, see also classic early experiments by Oparin and Haldane (and other things as well, like basic descriptions of subcellular life-forms, ribozymes (nuceliec acid enzymes that can reproduce themselves))....

[Productivity]

Actually, they have made 'life' from 'non-life'. I think somebody's actually made nucleotide chains by electrocuting seawater with massive amounts of static electrical charge (like repeated lightning strikes).

Abiogenesis isn't it?

I think actually it wasn't just seawater, it was what the earth was thought to contain at the time life first emerged.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteinoid

[Gawain of Orkeny]

While I personally don't believe in it and you do, it has nothing to do with the issue at hand - plausibility of evolutionary thought.

Look I find evolutin not only plausible but likely. I just feel theres more to it than we will ever know. I doubt the true cause of the the world and universe we life in will ever be known. Science is great but it can only go so far. Religion has always been used to explain the unexplainable. Science does basicly the same thing. We think weve explained somethings but were not sure. I my book science is nothing more than another religion. This does not make it bad or evil but like all religions a seeker of the ultimate truth.

[Quietus]

1. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.

Forget the fossils. Genes already support this.

2. Natural selection (the supposed evolution mechanism, along with mutations) is incapable of advancing an organism to a "higher-order".

Mutation and evolution is random. Do you think there are coconuts that didn't float in the ocean? The only coconuts that survived are the ones that can float. Natural selection.

3. Although evolutionists state that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world.

Life is a human definition. It's just a natural phenomenon special to this planet. But that doesn't mean there aren't other "natural phenomenon" in other pockets of the universe.

4. The supposed hominids (creatures in-between ape and human that evolutionists believe used to exist) bones and skull record used by evolutionists often consists of 'finds' which are thoroughly unrevealing and inconsistent. They are neither clear nor conclusive even though evolutionists present them as if they were.

Forget the bones, there's a lot of genetic evidence. That's horribly obsolete. Mixed genetic material is just being passed from one generation to another. Whichever product that survive will reproduce again, etc.

A lot of people complain about same-sex marriage. Don't fret, it's natural. Guess what, they can't reproduce. That's nature to you. Female-Female, and Male-Male cannot reproduce. We humans are the most sophisticated machines the world.

5. Nine of the twelve popularly supposed hominids are actually extinct apes/monkeys and not part human at all.

There are many theories, but they all involve branching out. A lot of animals that existed before are extinct. That doesn't mean they didn't live. We are all related.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

1. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.

You cannot conclude from that that there is no evidence for evolution. A wide spectrum of findings support the theory of evolution.

Micro yes Macro no

Every species is a transitional link in its own right.

Do we have a clue as to where man came from? Are we evolved from the apes?

2. Natural selection (the supposed evolution mechanism, along with mutations) is incapable of advancing an organism to a "higher-order".
Mutation and evolution is random. Do you think there are coconuts that didn't float in the ocean? The only coconuts that survived are the ones that can float. Natural selection.

Were thost that floated more advanced?

I dont think we have a clue as to how we got to be here only educated guesses and creationism is as good a guess as any.

[hrvojej]

I dont think we have a clue as to how we got to be here only educated guesses and creationism is as good a guess as any.

Creationism is not science. Teach it in Sunday schools and religious classes along with other genesis stories, but it does not abide by the rules set forth by scientific method, and hence has no place in science classroom.

[Byzantine Prince]

Creationism is not science. Teach it in Sunday schools and religious classes along with other genesis stories, but it does not abide by the rules set forth by scientific method, and hence has no place in science classroom.

He voted for Bush, I don't think anything logical will sway him into the obvious truth.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

Creationism is not science.

Neither is evolution.

[Byzantine Prince]

ev·o·lu·tion [èvvə lsh’n, və lsh’n]
(plural ev·o·lu·tions)
n
1. biology theory of development from earlier forms: the theoretical process by which all species develop from earlier forms of life.
On this theory, natural variation in the genetic material of a population favors reproduction by some individuals more than others, so that over the generations all members of the population come to possess the favorable traits.

Biology is a science!

[Gawain of Orkeny]

He voted for Bush, I don't think anything logical will sway him into the obvious truth.

There you go again MR Troll. First off I didnt vote for Bush. Secondly I believe in micro evolution . As far as macro evolution goes I dont see any more proof that its correct anymore than I do that creationist are correct. Im not picking either of them as the gospel truth. I feel the truth lies somewhere in between. You shouldnt speak on things you have absolutley no knowledge of.

Teach it in Sunday schools and religious classes along with other genesis stories, but it does not abide by the rules set forth by scientific method, and hence has no place in science classroom.

I never claimed it should be taught in science clas. But I also feel that they dont stress enough that what they are teaching is the THEORY of evolution not the science of evolution.

[hrvojej]

Neither is evolution.

On that you are wrong. Evolution and associated research abides by the logic behind the scientific method and the scietific method itself, along with peer review and everything else that is included in that term. Therefore, it has every right to be included together with all other scientific disciplines - it plays by the rules, and the rigors associated with those rules. In that it's no different than any other scientific discipline - anything contrary would be like suggesting that, say, nuclear physics, biochemistry or calculus are not sciences either because some people don't believe in their postulates and/or conclusions.

[SwordsMaster]

1. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.

What are transitional links? See, the average rate for a mutation to occur is about 1 every 1million copies of that gene. i.e, every time a cell copies itself the genetic content can change. So you think that you could see a difference in 1 accumulated genetic change from one generation to another? No chance. You probably wouldnt see them even every 10 generations.

Besides, most of the fossiles encountered are bones. And the possibility of 1 out of a million mutations affecting a bone is even smaller. Thats why there are not so many recognizable "transitory" species. Although such thing as transitory species doesnt exist. Because technically all species are transitory.

2. Natural selection (the supposed evolution mechanism, along with mutations) is incapable of advancing an organism to a "higher-order".

There is no such thing as higher order in nature. Some of the most complex organisms are Bacteria and other microscopic systems. And they have much better chance of survival as a race than humans have. So which is higher order?

3. Although evolutionists state that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world.

Well, as someone said before, placing a few suitable elements in a very rich environment and then electrocuting it with a decent enough voltage did produce simple "life".

And humans did not result from animals, we ARE animals.

4. The supposed hominids (creatures in-between ape and human that evolutionists believe used to exist) bones and skull record used by evolutionists often consists of 'finds' which are thoroughly unrevealing and inconsistent. They are neither clear nor conclusive even though evolutionists present them as if they were.

Well, there are some that are quite well studied and most scientists agree on their significance, one of them could be Lucy (the skeleton of a female hominid found in Africa) and there are others. Obviously as those bones are usually thousands of years old, they are never complete or perfectly conserved. But with that argument you could also say that the romans went to battle with rusty swords with no edge and dressed in rags. Yeah, we never discovered a shiny roman toga, did we?

5. Nine of the twelve popularly supposed hominids are actually extinct apes/monkeys and not part human at all.

And what about the other 4? The fact that there are 9 that are closer to the apes than to humans doesnt mean they didnt evolve, but confirms the theory. They had accumulated a number of mutations that separated them from the rest of the apes' species (thats the concept of species) but were not successful in reproducing (as they are extinct) thus they were extinguished and their habitats taken by more able individuals.



Boy, thats a long post...

[BDC]

There is a fascinating book called "The Feathered Onion" which is really interesting and edges into a lot of this, and some cell biology. And it's actually readable too (my textbook authors could take notes on this).