Sunday, August 30, 2009

30 Reasons Creation is Wrong Part 3

Part 2 can be found here and the article I am refuting can be found here.

So onto the list.

1. The evolution of one kind into another kind is not happening in a measurable way in the present, nor can it be proven to have occurred in the past.


Really? Interesting that this exists then http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/evolutionexampl.html. I was going to go through each one but I figured this one website would cover all the bases.

2. No new kinds of organisms are being observed coming from previously existing organisms. (We "discover" new kinds that we have never cataloged before, but this only shows our ignorance of their existence.)


Of course this doesn’t count the new species of fruit flies we have created in the lab or the constant changing of the flu virus does it? Also there is always this: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v387/n6628/abs/387070a0.html

3. No new structures or organs have been observed coming into existence. All observed structures or organs are fully formed when first observed. (The only observed changes to current structures or organs come from their decay and degradation.)


Except for those lizards cited above some of which went from carnivores to herbivores and had to develop a way to digest the plant matter so they created a new system out of what they already have. But we also shouldn’t see much in the way of organ evolution because it is a long slow process.

4. There are distinct gaps between the known kinds of organisms. One kind is not observed to change into another kind. We do not observe the ‘missing links’ because they are missing, not there, don't exist.


The day that we see one “kind” become another “kind” is the day that evolution is disproven. Evolution does not predict cats turning into dog or whatever it is a stepwise process. In 1000000 your descendants will not look anything like you but if you followed each step in between you might not even notice the subtle differences between each successive generation. As far as the no “missing links” if you mean like the famous crocoduck then I will admit defeat we don’t have any of those, but then again we don’t expect to, but what we do have are these:





5. Life only comes from life and reproduces after its own kind. Life does not come from nonliving material. Life does not spontaneously generate itself.


Evolution does not make a statement about how life came into being that would be abiogenesis. But just for the sake of argument let’s say I know a little bit about abiogenesis. 1) It does not argue that life came from non-life in fact we have found organic compounds in space now which help lead to a higher likelihood of this being true 2) Isn’t that what the literal creation story says anyway aren’t we all made from clay? As for the bit about life reproducing after its own “kind” I have never had anyone tell me what a kind is but as I said line up your past and future relatives and then just look at the two end points say 20 generations apart and tell me how similar they look.

6. Mutations, the supposed driving mechanisms of evolution, are random in nature and are neutral or harmful. They do not accumulate beneficially. Mutations produce the wrong kind of change and will not provide for the ‘upward’ progressive increase in intelligence or complexity required by evolutionists.


This point is fun from the very start. Mutations are no the “supposed driving mechanism of evolution” they are the raw material from which natural selection can “choose.” They provide the genetic diversity that makes each individual of a species unique and different from all of the others. I will agree that most mutations in nature are neutral and that a good majority are harmful in the current environment but it is when the environment changes that allows a previously harmful mutation to become a beneficial mutation. We will use the example of the gene that causes sickle cell. This is a harmful mutation for the people that have it but it also provides a resistance to malaria this is beneficial mutation. So what do we want well in the modern world of medicine sickle cell is a disease that people can get treatment for and can live a relatively normal life. This allows the gene to proliferate and what is even better is that in a person that has both the gene for sickle cell and one of the opposite they still get the malaria resistance. This is a long way of saying that mutation most definitely occurs in the mind and has allowed us to create medicines as well as elsewhere in the gene pool.

7. We observe stasis, not change, in nature. Extinction is a proof of creation. We do not find change in the fossil record nor can we measure it in the present. Animal and plant kinds that exist today retain the same appearance but are smaller in size than their known predecessors.


Interesting but I fail to see how extinction of species is proof of either stasis; of which global climate change, volcanism, etc also apply; but also how this is proof of creation. As far as your last point couple of points I direct you to the Dr. Bruce McFadden paper found here (MacFadden, B.J. 2005. EVOLUTION: Fossil Horses—Evidence for Evolution. Science, 307(5716):1728-1730.).

8. The fossil layers are not found in the ground in the nice neat clean order that evolutionists illustrate them to be in their textbooks. There is not one place on the surface of the earth where you may dig straight down and pass through the fossil layers in the order shown in the textbooks. The neat order of one layer upon another does not exist in nature. The fossil bearing layers are actually found out of order, upside down (backwards according to evolutionary theory), missing (from where evolutionists would expect them to be) or interlaced (‘younger’ and ‘older’ layers found in repeating sequences). ‘Out of place’ fossils are the rule and not the exception throughout the fossil record.


Let me start at the bottom of this statement first. An out of place fossil would be one that was found in a layer that is not of the age that the suspected fossil should be found in example would be finding a mammal in a Mississippian age strata. This has not ever been found if it was then it would falsify evolution right away. But a quick search of the scientific literature finds that this has never happened. Now on to the rest of his point…By “fossil layers” I am going to assume that he means fossil bearing rock layers or just rock layers because there are very few layers in the rock record that consist solely of fossils. He is right in saying that the rock layers are not always perfectly horizontal sometimes flipped upside down and often times just downright missing. But these imperfections in the rock layer can be explained through the process of mountain building via plate tectonics the same pressures that bend rock also cause it to flip. But we can typically distinguish between a rock layer that is laying the way it is supposed to be and one that has been flipped. As for the missing layers that one is easy and simply deals with erosion. All areas of the United States that are currently dry land will not have a rock record for right now where as the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes will have a near complete record. Now my guess is that our author did not make it the whole way through intro geology but instead stopped going after the first class because all of these processes are covered in the class but we start with the simplest aka the law of superposition.

9. Polystrate fossils, fossils which penetrate two or more layers of the fossil record (most often trees), are common throughout the fossil record. In rare cases even large animal skeletons have been found in vertical position rather than in a horizontal position.


As far as the large animal skeletons being found vertical the only ones I know of that have been are the mammoths pulled out of the not yet compressed permafrost soil layers in the Arctic regions. As for the rest:



His source on the polystrate trees is: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html

10. Life forms are found to be complex even in the "oldest" layers of the fossil record. For example, various species of Trilobites are found to have very sophisticated eyesight. Yet evolutionists say that these creatures supposedly evolved into existence when the first multiple celled life forms began to evolve some 620 million supposed years ago.


No we have evidence for life that is much older than 620 million years old in fact we have evidence of communal existence of single celled organisms at 3.4 billion years (source: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#strange_past) And we have solid evidence for multicellular life at the end of the Precambrian 580-545 million years (source: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/geo_timeline.html). In fact trilobite evolution occurred from at least 545 million years ago till they went extinct at the end of the Permian during the Permo-Triassic Extinction event (source: http://www.trilobites.info/geotime.htm). By the way isn’t it interesting that he uses as evidence against evolution one of the best examples of evolution we have today as well as one that does not currently exist and helps disprove the 6 day creation.

So we are now 1/3 of the way through the list. Part 4 will be the next 10 statments of the list.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

30 Reasons Creation is Wrong Part 2

Part 1 can be found here. And again the originial article can be found here

Ok so after that long interlude there let’s get into the actual article.

Evolutionists do not want us to teach in our public schools the science that shows the validity of creation. They want us to teach only their (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling) Just So Stories.


As with most “evolutionists” I wait with baited breath for someone to 1) Prove evolution wrong and 2) Prove without a shadow of a doubt that their creation view is right it is only when you do one of those two things that we will allow you to teach your “Just So Stories” in the classroom.

Personally, I believe that we should teach evolution side-by-side with creation giving equal scientific emphasis and have our students learn to think critically. Let us show them both and allow them to decide for themselves which one they will believe because origins is a faith position. Evolutionists reject this two model approach to teaching about origins because they inherently know that they will lose every time.


That sounds all good but again where is your evidence for creation? That is what it is going to take to get it in the classroom, if you can get out a peer reviewed article showing evidence for creation then I am all for allowing it to be taught in a classroom. What is scientific fact is not found out in a high school science classroom that is only where we teach the ideas that we have found to be true, it is found in a laboratory. But let’s play your game we should teach all the sides to an issue right? Well then we need to teach all the different Native American creation stories as well as the Hindu, Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, and Norse. If someone has a creation story it needs to be taught so we are giving our students every side to the issue so they can make up their own minds.

If they will not allow the teaching in our public schools of the science to support creation and adamantly defend the teaching of evolution only, that is fine with me - as long as we teach the students more about evolution than the evolutionists do. If we teach students ALL about evolution then they will realize that evolution is intellectually bankrupt.


For the start of this paragraph see my above paragraph. You know you are right we don’t teach our high school students everything about evolution because it is a complex process. We teach them the basics because we could spend years teaching them all the details of evolution and they still wouldn’t know it all. This is obviously something this writer has not done, I say this not out of an insult to the writer but because by him saying that evolution is “intellectually bankrupt,” he is insulting all those who study the process, all those people who use evolution to create drugs and vaccines so that we may live better lives, and all those of us who are alive today thanks to the study of evolution. Again though if evolution is so “intellectually bankrupt” then why has no one published so in a peer reviewed journal?

The solution to evolution is education!


Hmm interesting this why is it true that the more education you get the more you “believe” in evolution? Source (http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550)

Please allow us to teach the students the truth about the implications of the Laws of Science, such as the First and Second Law of Thermodynamics, and how these Laws disprove evolution. Please allow us to teach the truth about the whole and complete nature of natural processes, like photosynthesis and metamorphosis, and how these could not possible come into existence by random chance. Please allow us to teach the truth about what is really in the ground, like the out of order layers and polystrate fossils, as opposed to what evolutionists say is in the ground.


How the first two deal with evolution has always gotten me. Now I know we will cover most of these later on so I don’t want to cover them here it is just a waste of time.

Please allow us to teach the truth about the hoaxes and frauds that have been authenticated and perpetuated by evolutionists then later had to be retracted. Please allow us to teach the truth about: Piltdown Man, Java Man, Peking Man, English Peppered Moths, the Horse Series, Pithecanthropus alalus, Galapagos Finch Beaks, embryonic recapitulation and the Monera.


Although most of these aren’t completely hoaxes or frauds, especially the “horse series” and the “Galapagos Finch Beaks”, those that are truly hoaxes and frauds were discovered to be so by Scientists. This is the way science works when someone publishes something that isn’t true or doesn’t really work other scientists while trying to replicate his results find it impossible and call him on it viola science!

Please allow us to teach the students the truth about how the acceptance of evolution is the foundational justification to promote: human racism, homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, lawlessness, pornography, and all the other immoral and unethical activities within our society.


Really wow I didn’t know that. I guess germ and cell theory have the same goal in mind? The purpose of evolution is to explain how the life on this earth came to be how it is today. As I have stated in my blog previously science is by its very definition agnostic and on the same note it is also apolitical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and I wait patiently for you to present me with the evidence for this.

Yes, I am convinced! We need to teach more about evolution is our public schools, not less!


As am I although I also feel that we need to teach more math, English, other foreign languages, social studies/history, and other sciences.

With this admonition in mind, I want to give you a Primer on the Scientific Reasons that Evolution is Wrong. The following are only thirty basic points and are by no means the total list that we might make. This is just a list that you may refer to when you want a quick way to look up what is wrong with evolution.


And I intend on showing you how all 30 are wrong so that creationists cannot ever use these arguments again!

In part 3 we will get to the list, I promise!!

Friday, August 28, 2009

30 Reasons Creation is Wrong Part 1

Alright so this is the article I promised a couple of days ago that is refuting this article:

http://www.cft.org.za/articles/evolution_wrong_mcmurtry.htm

So it end up being 15 pages of text when written out in Word so I am going to cut this into a couple of different parts so it can be read instead of just skimming over it all. Ok so lets get started.

Ok so I wanted to start by doing an in depth talk about the organization of who put this article up. The writer of this article may or may not have anything to do with the organization, and based on where he is out of I would say no. There is not much out there on this organization but based on where their contact information points you towards, see here, I would say they are out of South Africa. I will let you read their beliefs by yourself, see here, so you can get a little more background about them but I just want to quote one thing from them, “CFT accepts the Bible as the inspired Word of God.” That should tell you about all you need to know about them.

So next we will move on to the person who actually wrote the article itself a "Prof. Dr Grady McMurtry". So I did a quick Google search and came across this: http://www.hudson.nu/blog/2008/12/dr-grady-mcmurtry-what-are-his.html. The writer of this article did all of the hard work for me so I suggest you take the time to read most of the article, the part about his family relation is not important to the discussion of his argument against Evolution. I just want to point out that he does have a doctorate but that it is in Theology and that his BS and MS are in forestry a field that is only partially relevant to the discussion on Evolution. Also calling himself a Professor is all well and good but why go by both Professor and Dr?

Anyway enough about Dr McMurtry lets move along to the article itself.

The article starts with the "QUOTES OF THE DAY" (yes if you haven't read the article it is written in all caps), the first one of which is by some fellow by the name of George Washington. Update: It turns out the George Washington was the first President of the United States and some sort of General or something, who knew! :-)

'No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the invisible affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. . . . We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained.' President George Washington


So this quote is only taken slightly out of context and I wouldn't go so far as to even call it a quote mine. What I would say, however, is that he is trying to put words in his mouth. But don't just agree/disagree with me the whole speech is located here: http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/inaugural/final.html
Now the reason that I say that is not because President Washington was a Deist like so many of the other founding fathers it is because, as you can see here: http://www.virginiaplaces.org/religion/religiongw.html, we don't actually know what his religion was. We don't know this because he like most people felt religion was a personal issue and not one that should be paraded around like so many of our politicans feel they need to today, see here. The President felt, as did most of the founding fathers, that there should be a seperation of church and state and I feel that by using this quote here you are saying that not only did he support your view on religion, which not only do we not know what he support we are pretty certian that he would have disagreed with you based soley on seperation of church and state, but that he felt that Evolution is wrong and that creationism should be taught in schools. This last point is almost certianly false because Evolution doesn't even get published till 70 years after this speech was given so he wouldn't have known about it.

The next quote is by Walter Williams

’ If we are ignorant of the historical sacrifices that made our liberties possible, we will be less likely to make the sacrifices again so that those liberties are preserved for future generations. And, if we are ignorant, we wont even know when government infringes on our liberties. Moreover, we will happily cast our votes for those who would destroy our liberties.’ Walter Williams


So I don’t really have anything to say on this quote mostly because it deals with politics and not science so I don’t see any reason to go into it and I really don’t see the point, so why include it because I promised to include everything.
The next quote is by someone very familiar.

’ The solution to evolution is education!’ Dr. Grady S. McMurtry


Yes it is by our good friend Dr. McMurtry. Now there are many problems with this quote, besides the fact that it is wrong as we will see as we go through the rest of his points. The main one is that he is quoting himself. Now normally that would be normal and in fact it happens all the time in science papers but unless he has said it in another work, in which case he will need to quote it later, he is quoting something that hasn’t been said yet. If I was him I would have included another quote maybe one from a “evolutionist” saying how evolution is wrong, e.g. the Gould quote or one of the many other favorites of creationists to quote mine.

Part 2 can be found here and as always I always welcome your comments.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Must see channel on Youtube

Ok so I know that I haven't posted much this month, heck we are approaching the low of June, but this whole run up to getting started again in school has been slowing me down. Anyway I took today off to relax one last day before I actually start school and watched all of the videos on this (http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610) channel. I don't know if it makes me a loser or just a science nerd, heck those two are probably tied together, but I wanted to spread the channel to anyone who reads my blog and might not have seen this channel. I recomend it to people on both sides of the argument because he does a good job of stating where his evidence is coming from. Now while I know most people can't just sit down and watch all of the videos right in a row I recommend to watch them when you get a chance, I learned quite a bit I didn't know and I know that he will be getting a lot more references from me from people who try to deny global warming.

One last thing I have been working on another big refuting post that if I can get my act together will be put out by the end of the month but there is a very good possibility it might not be out till sometime in September it depends on how much time I get to work on it over the next few days.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Another One

Yet another great video as a preview for the VT Bama matchup the first weekend of Sept. This one starts a little slow but the ending is killer enjoy:

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Something funny

So I know I haven't posted much over the last few weeks but I have driven about 4500 miles over the last 2 weeks so I haven't exactly had time. Now I figured I would share this with all of you:

http://dresdencodak.com/2009/08/06/youre-a-good-man-charlie-darwin-2/

It is pretty funny I suggest you check it out.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Creation Museum

Ok so there hasn't been much anti-science out there recently. If I had to guess I would say it is because of the health care reform stuff going on in the US right now and since I try to stay away from political issues on here I am not going to discuss it, yes I have an opinion but I don't think anyone really wants to hear my side right now. I also, for all the VT fans who read this, know the Evans tore his ACL and is out for the season but I think this got enough coverage over the past 24 hours that there isn't really anything else for me to say on it.

What I wanted to post was this:
http://www.ooblick.com/text/creation-museum/
For anyone who has ever wanted to visit the creation museum without having to pay for it this is your chance. I personally have thought about it but it is far too far away from me and I really don't want to pay the $20 to get in and support what they are doing. But from the looks of it they don't raise any points that haven't been refuted before. It was still interesting to see the pictures and read some of what the signs said. To any creationist who might read this think about where the money to build this came from originally. I wonder if Ken Ham will be able to pass this off the way Kent Hovind did as a tax exempt thing or if he is playing the safe card and paying taxes on what he makes. Since I don't wish anyone ill I'll hope for the latter.

UPDATE: I don't know if this means anything but last year when I was heading south on I-71 through Cincinati there was one sign for the "museum" but when I drove through today I saw at least three signs and they had gone from a very simple sign to very fancy catch your eye type signs. I don't know what to make of that but I just figured I would point that out.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Alumna sues college

So I know everything has been very Virginia Tech centered recently so here is something different!

Wow is this really what we have come to?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/03/new.york.jobless.graduate/index.html

1) A 2.7 is not stellar
2) People with experience are having trouble finding jobs what makes you think you are so special
3) There are jobs out there you might just have to leave the city you are in
4) They might not help out the 4.0s more it is just easier for them to find a job

I hope to be able to keep up with this story and will let you know how it ends. Also the next 2 weeks I will be running around the Eastern and Central US like a chicken with its head cut off so don't expect too many posts.

Hokie Iron Man

As we continue the countdown, T minus 33 days, till kickoff I figured I would present this video set to the preview for the movie Iron Man:



LETS GO HOKIES