craighopkins said: evolution was thought of by a satanic person and is a hoax it violates spontaneous generation, law of information systems, specified complexity, irreducible complexity, statistical mathematics, natural selection, fossil records, beneficial mutations, genetic complexity, and information theory |
Spontaneous Generation
Evolution has nothing to do with how life on earth started. You are confusing evolution with abiogenesis.
Law of Information Systems
Nobody says this besides Bill Dembski. Almost every mathematician that has looked over his work has said it was nonsense. This is just another way of saying that evolution is improbable, but we'll address that in a minute.
Specified Complexity
This is the idea that certain life forms on earth were designed to perform specific tasks, and couldn't have possibly ever performed another task in the past. For example: Vultures were designed to clean up rotting carcasses and prevent the spread of disease. If you took away one of the traits of a vulture such as having strong stomach acid, or a keen sense of smell it wouldn't be able to perform it's biological function. In essence this is just another form of the "irriducable complexity" argument.
Irriducable Complexity
This is the idea that if you took a single part out of an organism it wouldn't function. For example if we took the trigger out of a mousetrap it would no longer function and is thus irriducibly complex. The flaw in this thinking is the assumption that evolution always works in a straight line. Evolution often takes wild paths. Just look at whales, they came from the sea as fish, then evolved into mammals, then went back to the sea agian and look like fish. To use the mousetrap example, even without a trigger, a mousetrap is still useful as a tieclip. To use an example from biology, wings in bats did not take a sudden straight path to becoming wings. Before they were wings, they were claws, and before that they were fins. The irriducable complexity argument assumes that some fish suddenly evolved it's fins into wings with no useful inbetween.
Statistical Mathmatics
No matter how improbable something may seem, if the evidence is staring you in the face you have to accept it. Statistics takes a backseat to imperical observation. A prosecutor can argue till he's blue in the face about how improbable it was that Jimmy died accidentally. "Oh Jimmy couldn't have suddenly slipped on a bannana peel, rolled down the hill and fell into the dumpster just as the trash compactor was activating. The odds are a million to one!" The second that the defense shows footage from a local security camera of Jimmy doing just that, the prosecutor is dead in the water. Likewise, you can say that evolution is improbable until you are blue in the face, but the second millions of fossils are thrown in your face you are proven wrong.
Natural Selection and Fossil Records
Evolution *is* natural selection. It can't violate itself. The fossil record does nothing but support evolution. A two second google search for "fossil evidence for evolution" proves you wrong. A youtuber named Donexodus2 has a series on the evidence for evolution. I suggest you watch it, and educate yourself.
Beneficial Mutations
Yeah, yeah, only one in a thousand mutations are benificial therefore evolution couldnt' possibly work, right? Except you are forgetting two things. First off, benificial mutations being only one in a thousand would only slow evolution down, not stop it outright. Even if you filled a bucket with a single pebble once every thousand years, the bucket would eventually become full. Second, mutations are not the only way that evolution makes progress. Finding new combinations of existing genes, and passing on the benificial combinations pushes evolution forward as well. For example: Your dad has red hair, and your mom has green eyes. You get your red hair from your mom, and your blue eyes from your dad. A lot of people think that's sexy, and you get to pass on your genes.
Genetic Complexity
"Modern DNA is too complex to have suddenly appeaered out of nowhere!" Except you are forgetting that modern DNA likely evolved as well. The first organisms on earth likely had RNA, or something even simpler.
Information Theory
Just another example of someone putting probability ahead of empirical observation. "But Bob couldn't have had a Royal Flush. The odds are 649739 to 1!" - Some idiot. "You watched the cards get dealt. You watched the flop and the river. You know it's impossible for me to cheat with all the cameras in the casino. STFU" - Bob. Not to mention this was also dreamt up by Dembski, and multiple mathematicians have discredited his work already.