So, I’ve got this dude in my art class who insists on taking me on regarding evolution. He saw that I added a small image of Australopithecus Sediba in my current painting and he went nuts. Normally I can pretty much destroy these dweebs with the standard arguments, but this dude came up with a few new claims. Even though they all sound completely rediculous to me, I could not effectively refute them as I had not heard them before. Was wondering if the great minds out there would mind providing me with a few counters to his silliness. He claimed the following:
Evolution does not meet the criteria to qualify as a theory. (I was too gobsmacked to respond. Don’t know if he knows something I don’t)
He mumbled something about the total amount of information in the known universe is estimated to be 10X200 , while the amount of information in a single cel is 10X3000. Thus god must have created life, blah, blah. Again what can I say. Are there any believeable estimates on the matter?
He claims that some Chinese scientist found hominids and dinosaurs in the same strata thus proving young earth theory. I certainly didn’t hear of such a find, has anyone else?
Just thought I’d throw it out there and hear what you guys have to say.
If he means scientific theory, that is odd, since most scientists seem to disagree with him. Why are his criteria for a scientific theory different from scientists?
I’d ask him what his supposed criteria are, and how evolution does not fulfill them. There isn’t much to argue until you know that.
I don’t know much about information theory, but surely something where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole is a problem (i.e. surely if the amount of info in a cell is 1x10^3000, then the universe has to be greater than that, considering the cell is part of the universe).
Even if they did find that it wouldn’t necessarily prove a young earth. Australopithecus Sediba is 1.78 to 1.95 million years old. Even if it was found in the same strata as dinosaurs, the earth wouldn’t be 6000 years old.
You can start here and here (here’s a different take). Here you will find exposed the distortions that creationists are guilty of when estimating information content and the probabilities associated with the generation of certain things. The essence of these misrepresentations is that they invariably ignore the fact that evolution operates cumulatively. That is, features arise incrementally from prior features; they do not spring spontaneously into existence fully formed ― if they did, it would actually refute evolution.
er…
on point one, im not sure what a ‘theory’ consists of. but in my view, seeing is believing. and when i have the skull of a 2million year old ancestor in my clammy paws, then yes, i can see it, and i have half a braincell, i can join the dots. i would suppose that theory died a long while ago, when scientists didnt know what the hell half these fossils were, and had no idea how to date it. i think the term ‘evolution theory’ can be replaced with ‘evolution fact’.
point two.
er. wtf? that is hocus pocus. how the hell do they even begin to estimate the information contained in the universe? they dont even know where it ends, or can explain a whole bunch of things within it. simple example, a black hole. duh? so that theory is hogwash. allso, elsewhere in this forum, there is a discussion concerning mitchondrial dna. basically, your human cell has a nucleus, and its contains your dna, hair colour and the like. the mitchondria and other cell organelles, contain their own dna. and those dna corresponds with dna found in bacteria and parasites. this means, when we were single celled being back in the day, the organisms became co-depandant, if you will, and evolved together. its quite interresting.
point three
from a basic budding geologist and archeologist’s perspect. simple answer. floods, landslides… you have your strata that contain fossils. many many layers of it. maybe contained in a mountainside. an earthquake/flood happens, tonnes of dirt gets sloughed off the mountainface, and redeposited elsewhere. then end up in the same strata for some dumbass to find millions of years later, and have a woody over. this, too, sounds like one of these mails going around, that everyone believes for truty. like gaint skeletons and kak.
tell him to prove it.
I’d like to recommend a good book - it’s very short and very easy to read. It deals with fossils and dating techniques (which creotards love to use, even though they have no idea what they’re talking about), called Bones, Rocks and Stars The Science Of When Things Happened by Chris Turney. It’s available on Kalahari .net.
If this is true, then what we think we know about evolution will certainly come up for revision. And this will beautifully illustrate the hallmark of a scientific theory: namely that it is possible to prove the theory wrong.
Now all your friend needs to do is provide the details of the dig that proves that ape-men and dinosaurs coexisted, and he’ll have a counterexample that will rock the foundations of Biology.
But remember that the evidence for Intelligent Design is being suppressed by the Global Darwinist Conspiracy. And because of this vast and sinister conspiracy, we will be seeing more and more fascism, communism and genocide. Ben Stein’s Expelled for details.
Thanks to all of you for the responses and the references. I should be able to sink his ship. or is it ark. To be honest, it is quite difficult to resist the temptation to throttle the moron.
Here is a decent overview of why evolution is a scientific theory. In a nutshell, it is properly a scientific theory because it is falsifiable and because it makes testable predictions.
As for the claim about Chinese scientists finding hominid fossils among those of dinosaurs, if that were true, it would of course pose a serious challenge to current evolutionary theory. But evolutionary theory is well established and so the person making such a claim had better put forward some verifiable evidence, for example citing a paper published in a respectable scientific journal that documents this incredible discovery. Without such stringent corroboration, one is fully entitled to dismiss it as a fabrication for the same reasons a pair of young girls’ claims about fairies in their garden can be dismissed as such.
You know, my favourite points of evidence that fucks with these tards logic is offering them to explain in order of
Oldest living tree in Sweden IIRC 9500+ yo
Victoria Waterfalls gorges (approx 100k yo)
Cango Caves (a few million)
Sudwala Caves (even older)
Lake varves (russia study dates waaaay back)
Antarctic ice cores (±750k yo data)
The last two they will find canned rebuttals from AiG which suggest there are recorded instances of tree rings being duplicated in a single year, double seasonal varve layers.
The twats just will extend their stupid timeline to allow for the tree, IOW they state 6-10k yo planet.
Of course you can always pull out the age of moon rocks of 4.5Bn years which match rocks dated to approx the same age on their temporal home until jeebus cums again to take them fuckers all cloud surfing in teh rupture.
After you have used all the points I have offered, they will deflect, insult, rinse, recycle, repeat hoping some other sucker will buy their snake oil. To effectively debate a creationist, you need to have half or more of your brain removed via a lobotomy.
I guess you can glean off this post what I really think of these dweebs ;D
Uncovering the bones of, say, a mammal from Cambrian rock would probably force us to abandon current evolution theory.
Maybe you’re classmate could return the favour by indicating what he would consider a convincing argument against creationism. If the answer is “nothing”, then you might as well save yourself the trouble of trying.
Oh they have that one all worked out; the lard created the light en route to us.
Man I am sooo looking forward to 2013 when these fucktards lard fails once again to rupture the dweebs, maybe then they will toss their cloud surf boards - we can only hope can we not?
2013? I thought the next “Rupture” ( ;D ) was predicted to begin in May 2011, and to come to an end in October that same year. If that one fails to materialise, you have December 2012 to look forward to, courtesy of the Mayans who apparently had a magical system of numeration such that when it reached its maximum counting value when applied in a calendar, every living thing on Earth would be turned into a blood sacrifice.
If any one of these doom prophecies dares be so inconsiderate as to spurn its prophets and fail to eventuate, the proponents will scratch their heads, open their wise books and feverishly cook up a slew of excuses for why they were wrong, before proceeding as if nothing was amiss to proclaim their next date for global cataclysm. What they decidedly will not do is to reassess their approach or consider the possibility that their entire methodology is flawed from its dodgy inception, through dumb execution to its daft conclusions. Doing so would also mean that, incidentally, they would very soon lose their large, fawning audiences composed chiefly of credulous dolts.
That is, unbridled hope needs be tempered with a measure of realism.
Talking of such, I see the Mighty Moron conference has been on. Agnes Buchan was expecting 400,000 credulous dolts wif money!!! Where the f does he find so many of them? (wtf!!)
Much obliged, Mr R., though a strong argument could be made that turnover is often preferred above a good margin. In other words, a hypermarket of hokum will do brisker trade than a deli of delusions. Despite the bumpkin persona, Angus Spudman clearly understands this well, even if only subconsciously. His mass of Mighty Minions should be sufficient to convince even the most cold-heartedly analytical sceptic.
2013 will be the year after the Mayan ende ov teh wurlde so I have been on a few forums preemptively wishing all these dweebs a prosperous 2013.
Shit, having been conned into the delusion ov the end of daze, I knew all the date lines and revisions, seems I am out of touch with it all nowadays.
One thing these fucktards refuse to answer is how exactly the MoB will be implemented globally assuming their latest offering of a 80’s something RFID chip.
I once worked out the logistics involved and the cost of such an exercise and it was like 100 time more expensive than the Iraq war and would require the mobilization of more than 6M coordinated forces not to mention most of the world has no or very little telecom infrastructure for a point of sale technology not to mention that his shite is all supposed to happen within a 3-1/2 year period If they are mid tribulation cloud surfers. The timeline with 6M+ troops would still be in the order of 10 to 15 years and like most of Africa has computerized records of all it’s citizens - NOT!
Of course, the woo woos, mostly American merely look at the wurlde through the straw of their perverted perspective, you know, planet USA and all, and never provide any logical counters as to how this really would transpire.
We may have a reprieve somewhat with the democrats in charge for now, but fuck, if the retards like Palin and co do ever get into power, they IMO will want to help jeebus fulfill the Armageddon prophesies and press a few wrong buttons.
Personally, if we could somehow teleport the whole USA from planet earth except the native folk, the world would be a far better place. So sad that that seems to be predominant country living in the dark ages still.
I know we have our own woo woos but generally I think most theists here are what they call cafeteria xians. If 70% of our population had to attend church as the faithfools do, there are NOT enough pew seats in all our churches to accommodate them.
I look forward to the day when churches are converted to more useful places like pubs, and malls in the case of places like Rhema. Alas, here is a fool born every minute so I guess we will still have to endure their stupidity.
It does however provide entertainment for us heathen ;D
