Blog posts teaching creationists to debate evolutionist

[formergothardite]

I will be honest, I'm still learning a lot about evolution and science since my pre-college education was just "God made it, shut up and accept that with no questions". And even though I began in college to start believing in evolution, it is still something that is a huge weak point for me. I doubt I could debate a fundie very well on it.

But these are blog posts supposedly using science to teach fundies how to defend creationism. I'm not exactly sure why fundies want to do this so bad, if you can prove God there is no need for faith, and the Bible says that Christians should live by faith, not sight. So if you are "proving" God made the earth, you are living by sight not faith.

Who wouldn’t want to know whether they are the magnificent creation of a loving God Who cares for them deeply, or if they are in fact the product of a process called evolution that depends on nothing more than random chance. If the former, then they are created in the image of God Himself and are thus of great value; if the latter, then they are nothing more than a collection of molecules and atoms that find their origin in an abyssal pool billions of years ago (i.e. worthless). With such a stark contrast between our two options, you can see why this is such a controversial issue.

The first big problem with this is that the God of the Bible is not very loving and doesn't seem to care deeply for most of the population of the world. So if I get to choose between evolution or being made in the image of a sadistic, cruel god who is most likely going to torture most of the world for all of eternity, I'm choosing the first.

That is why I am going to devote the next few posts to equipping you to defend your Creationist views (assuming of course that you are a Christian). You’ll find that my posts will use pure Science as their backbone. I will reference Scripture only as necessary so you will be more likely to persuade even the most devout atheist against evolution. Once you have accomplished this, he or she will be more open to discussions about God and the Bible, and consequentially to salvation.

No, actually I won't. I know all about the Bible, god and salvation and I want nothing to do with any of them.

The first post is about the lack of fossils showing missing links.

lifefromadeerstand.com/2010/08/in-beginning-fossil-record.html

You can tell me that Evolution is possible until your blue in the face, but I don’t want theories; I want facts. Whether or not an animal could evolve is not the issue. I want proof that they did, and that proof just does not exist.

This can be reworded to say: You can tell me that Creation is possible unitl you are blue in the face, but I don't want theories; I want facts. Wheather or not God created the earth in six days is not the issue. I want proof that he did and that proof just does not exist. The Bible doesn't count as "proof".

The second post is about DNA:

lifefromadeerstand.com/2010/08/in-beginning-dna.html

Yet thousands of scientists consider it the product of Evolution. They give no credit to a Designer, despite the fact that DNA cannot form spontaneously out of chemical elements. Yes, that’s right. Despite the common sense argument against evolution, Scientists must ignore their own laws in order to make their theory work. Doesn’t sound like Science to me!

Basing your beliefs on a book of fiction doesn't make a lot of common sense either. And there is nothing to say that the Bible is anything more than a book of fiction from a really long time ago. I'm sure the scientists who believe in evolution understand DNA way better than this blogger.

The last one is the second law of thermodynamics:

.lifefromadeerstand.com/2010/09/in-beginning-second-law-of.html

According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, everything tends toward disorder. That is, until you begin examining the most important issue of all time: where we came from. Then, scientists say that chaos produced harmony, discord produced peace, and a random explosion produced, not only the entire universe, but even me and you. Who knew that one of the most popular ideas ever suggested by science would be so unscientific?

This is one of those points that I couldn't debate at all because I don't understand any of it enough. So hopefully the smarter Free Jingerians can help me out here.

After reading all of those posts I understand that this is a subject that I am not educated enough on to really be able to debate a fundie, but I also am not swayed by any of those arguments. I have in my life been able to see fleas evolve and change to the point that flea medication that worked in my childhood won't work on pets now. If that can happen in 30+ years, then amazing things could happen in millions of years. It just makes sense to me.

ETA: Don't click on his "about me" unless you want to see a dead animal.

[burntnorton]

On the 2nd law, there's tons of stuff out there, but the short answer is that it doesnt mean what they think it means. In a closed system, entropy will always increase, but entropy is not the same as "disorder" in the sense the word is colloquially used. Moreover, entropy is a measure of how things behave at the atomic, subatomic, and energy level, not of how things are organized per se. Evolution may or may not represent a decrease in entropy on Earth (i don't think it does), but the Earth is not a closed system. We are receiving a constant influx of energy from the sun. So entropy doesnt have to increase in the provess of evolution for it to be consistent with the second law.

[rward]

On the 2nd law, there's tons of stuff out there, but the short answer is that it doesnt mean what they think it means. In a closed system, entropy will always increase, but entropy is not the same as "disorder" in the sense the word is colloquially used. Moreover, entropy is a measure of how things behave at the atomic, subatomic, and energy level, not of how things are organized per se. Evolution may or may not represent a decrease in entropy on Earth (i don't think it does), but the Earth is not a closed system. We are receiving a constant influx of energy from the sun. So entropy doesnt have to increase in the provess of evolution for it to be consistent with the second law.

THANK YOU.

The 2LoT gets used and abused so, so much. Human beings are not closed systems, we interact with and receive energy from the outside world and put energy out into the outside world (body heat, for example). The Earth is also not a closed system, the solar system is not a closed system, the galaxy is not a closed system.

[feministing]

True story: researchers in the 20s demonstrated that you CAN create nucleus acids with some random gases and an electric current. Google the abiogenesis hypothesis. It was proven experimentally. Idk what "science" this guy is referring to.

ETA: humans are not the most ordered thing in existence. You know what is? The primordial, infinitely dense speck that precipitated the Big Bang.

You can get more ordered than us for sure. In fact, gestation of a human being (ie going against entropy laws) required a lot of energy, which allows the "uphill" nature of these processes. This energy, which comes from the breakdown of the food we eat - yes, breakdown, meaning increased entropy, is dissipated out of the mitochondria, and yes, increases in entropy to compensate. As for when we die, that process obviously doesn't require energy. So what happens? We become more disordered, eventually disintegrating into sand/dust/fertilizer.

So his understanding of thermodynamics and entropy is extremely limited and elementary.a real scientist would laugh at him.

[Effie]

I think he is referring to pseudo-science of some sort...

Edit. I got a horse from God - yay!

[Khiwanean]

In the Beginning - New Series

Who wouldn’t want to know whether they are the magnificent creation of a loving God Who cares for them deeply, or if they are in fact the product of a process called evolution that depends on nothing more than random chance. If the former, then they are created in the image of God Himself and are thus of great value; if the latter, then they are nothing more than a collection of molecules and atoms that find their origin in an abyssal pool billions of years ago (i.e. worthless). With such a stark contrast between our two options, you can see why this is such a controversial issue.

Assigning arbitrary values to things is soooo convincing. Honestly, I find it much more awesome to think I am the product of many, many small changes over time rather than that humans were poofed into existance. That life is an unlikely occurance doesn't make it worthless.

That is why I am going to devote the next few posts to equipping you to defend your Creationist views (assuming of course that you are a Christian). You’ll find that my posts will use pure Science as their backbone. I will reference Scripture only as necessary so you will be more likely to persuade even the most devout atheist against evolution. Once you have accomplished this, he or she will be more open to discussions about God and the Bible, and consequentially to salvation.

I like that guilt trip there - "assuming of course that you are a Christian" - which assumes that one cannot be Christian and also suscribe to the Theory of Evolution. :doh:

In the Beginning - The Fossil Record

Consider the bat, for example. Many modern Scientists believe that this creature evolved from mice. They believe this despite the fact that no intermediary stages of this transition have been found in the fossil record!

No, bats aren't rodents, so scientists hardly believe that they evolved from mice. Even if they were rodents, they wouldn't have evolved from mice. They would have evolved from a common ancestor. And that assertion about no intermediary stages in the fossil record is also wrong. Every fossil is a transitional fossil. Every. Single. One.

Every individual of any given species has a few mutations that their ancestors did not. It's when these small changes build up over generations that speciation occurs. An easy example of speciation in progress: donkeys and horses. They are close enough genetically to produce offspring (mules), yet not genetically close enough that their offspring are fertile.

You can tell me that Evolution is possible until your blue in the face, but I don’t want theories; I want facts. Whether or not an animal could evolve is not the issue. I want proof that they did, and that proof just does not exist.

The conditions needed in order for fossilization to occur are pretty rare. You're saying you require this process to occur 100% of the time, when it doesn't even come close to that? Talk about a spurious request! There will always be gaps in the fossil record, because fossils don't happen all that often. Even with those gaps, you can clearly see a progression. For instance, in humanoid skulls.

Dakota also includes a quote attributed to Darwin by Elizabeth Cotton, which Darwin's family denies he ever said.

In the Beginning - DNA

Yet thousands of scientists consider it the product of Evolution. They give no credit to a Designer, despite the fact that DNA cannot form spontaneously out of chemical elements. Yes, that’s right. Despite the common sense argument against evolution, Scientists must ignore their own laws in order to make their theory work. Doesn’t sound like Science to me!

There are actually several competing hypotheses about the origin of life. One of which is abiogenesis, which posits that life formed out of inorganic matter. That's not so different from "spontaneously forming out of chemical elements," even though it's pretty disingenuous to word it like that.

The Theory of Evolution, however, doesn't deal with the origin of life at all. It has to do with the diversification of life forms. Oops?

In the Beginning - Second Law of Thermodynamics

According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, everything tends toward disorder. That is, until you begin examining the most important issue of all time: where we came from. Then, scientists say that chaos produced harmony, discord produced peace, and a random explosion produced, not only the entire universe, but even me and you. Who knew that one of the most popular ideas ever suggested by science would be so unscientific?

Actually the Second Law of Thermodynamics says that entropy tends to increase in closed systems. There is actually a distinction between this and "everything tends towards disorder". It's an easy mistake to make, I know. The distinction come where this Law actually implies that things start off more orderly and become less so over time. The whole starting off orderly blows the rest of this argument out of the water.

[formergothardite]

I think he is referring to pseudo-science of some sort...

Edit. I got a horse from God - yay!

I really hate I missed getting a horse from God. That has to be one of my favorites titles.

Thanks everyone for explaining this better. I wonder if he really has ever debated a well informed person who believes in evolution or if these are just things that he has been taught would "prove" evolution wrong. He kind of acts like he is an expert in debating evolution vs. creation, but it seems like he is winning these debates in imaginary conversations in his mind.

[pirouette]

By no means am I an expert on the subject, but I did take a course on Evolution fairly recently. Granted, most of this course was about learning mechanisms by which Evolution could happen, but since fundies' main argument against evolution seems to be "humans are superduper complicated therefore it's IMPOSSIBLE for them to evolve," I think that learning (scientifically accurate) ways by which this is currently believed to have happened is a good start.

When I saw the bit about bats, I became enraged, because this is something of an area of expertise of mine. First off, they most certainly did not evolve from rodents. In fact, it's much stranger than that-- current theory is that their closest relatives may be hooved animals, dolphins, and whales. Of course, as many have said, it's not that bats evolved FROM dolphins, common ancestor, blah blah blah. (Their most recent common ancestors also could be hedgehogs-- science is a little conflicted here, but we're working on it.) But regardless, I've read some fascinating stuff about how bats evolved wings, echolocation, and flight. Even with this bizarre ancestry, science is finding answers.

Regarding transition fossils, I have an answer to that, too! (SCIENCE!) Bats are incredibly small with lightweight bones, which are horrible conditions for fossil preservation. There are so few transition fossils of bats because there are so few fossils of bats, period. I'd also ask the author to take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychonycteris *gasp* A transition fossil! Granted, it's a late-stage transition fossil, quite similar to a modern bat, but with distinct and important differences.

P.S. (slightly off topic) Many ask for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. I personally prefer the approach my professor took-- opening class by saying "According to a recent survey, 60% of Americans believe I'm going to be lying to you for the next semester.... Okay, let's talk about Darwin now."

[pirouette]

Meant to add- I do applaud creationists for asking for proof, but it's astounding how they fail to see that there's no proof in their story, either. Also, I don't think many of them understand what "proof" means in science. We can never 100% prove anything. This is even harder when studying events of the past. Do they want us to uncover ancient video footage of monkeys turning into humans? (Bad example used on purpose.)

[slickcat79]

I like that guilt trip there - "assuming of course that you are a Christian" - which assumes that one cannot be Christian and also suscribe to the Theory of Evolution. :doh:

In the Beginning - The Fossil Record

No, bats aren't rodents, so scientists hardly believe that they evolved from mice. Even if they were rodents, they wouldn't have evolved from mice. They would have evolved from a common ancestor. And that assertion about no intermediary stages in the fossil record is also wrong. Every fossil is a transitional fossil. Every. Single. One.

Also, even if scientists believed that bats evolved from mice, the bible claims that they are birds. So both would be equally incorrect.

Really, I'm still waiting for some pure Science. These arguments are just regurgitated Ray Comfort crap that I'm pretty sure even he has given up by now. They've already been debunked by dozens of "devout atheists"...just check out the youtube videos :roll:

[Conuly]

Who wouldn’t want to know whether they are the magnificent creation of a loving God Who cares for them deeply, or if they are in fact the product of a process called evolution that depends on nothing more than random chance. If the former, then they are created in the image of God Himself and are thus of great value; if the latter, then they are nothing more than a collection of molecules and atoms that find their origin in an abyssal pool billions of years ago (i.e. worthless). With such a stark contrast between our two options, you can see why this is such a controversial issue.

Well, I don't consider myself "worthless", but if the choice is between that and accepting that I am by nature an incorrigible sinner who deserves to suffer eternally and must be forever grateful at the shred of a chance of avoiding this fate given by the oh so generous one who made the rules in the first place, I know which I pick.

Not that reality cares what I think about it, anyway, or how it makes me feel. The evidence stacks up in favor of evolution, whether we like it or not.

[Swamptribe]

I'm just going to leave this here....

talkorigins.org

[nelliebelle1197]

They would have evolved from a common ancestor. And that assertion about no intermediary stages in the fossil record is also wrong. Every fossil is a transitional fossil. Every. Single. One.

This is pretty brilliant.

[EmiGirl]

When I saw the bit about bats, I became enraged, because this is something of an area of expertise of mine. First off, they most certainly did not evolve from rodents. In fact, it's much stranger than that-- current theory is P.S. (slightly off topic) Many ask for creationism to be taught alongside evolution. I personally prefer the approach my professor took-- opening class by saying "According to a recent survey, 60% of Americans believe I'm going to be lying to you for the next semester.... Okay, let's talk about Darwin now."

I went to a Methodist college and in my evolution class the first thing my professor told us "Check your religion at the door. We're not here to debate, we're here to look at the facts."

[August]

I wish someone wouldteach them to debate. They're hopeless, usually. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

You can find pretty much any answer to a creationist at http://www.talkorigins.org (not broken because they're fundie fighters).

[Conuly]

I wish someone wouldteach them to debate. They're hopeless, usually. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

You can find pretty much any answer to a creationist at http://www.talkorigins.org (not broken because they're fundie fighters).

Fish at least have the courtesy to drop dead when you get them. Creationists never do. Ever notice that their arguments change and adapt to fit what you throw at them? Oh, if only I had a word for that process! They're still crappy arguments.

[Minerva]

Who wouldn’t want to know whether they are the magnificent creation of a loving God Who cares for them deeply, or if they are in fact the product of a process called evolution that depends on nothing more than random chance. If the former, then they are created in the image of God Himself and are thus of great value; if the latter, then they are nothing more than a collection of molecules and atoms that find their origin in an abyssal pool billions of years ago (i.e. worthless). With such a stark contrast between our two options, you can see why this is such a controversial issue.

My biggest issue with this is that it's a huge false dichotomy. It claims that you can either believe that Genesis literally happened, or that there is no God. Believing in evolution does not necessarily preclude you from having religious beliefs. You can absolutely believe in evolution and in a loving God who created you in their image. Tons of people do. Lots of people also belong to religions other than Christianity and don't buy into the "created in his image" thing at all.

Science studies the physical world. It makes no pronouncements whatsoever on spiritual matters. The fact that certain religious groups' teachings make pronouncements on science does not change this.

Another thing is that there is nothing inherently bad about our existence being the result of chance. Lots of people are perfectly comfortable believing that. Lots of other people would rather have been specially created in the image of a loving God, but think believing what's most likely true is more rational than believing what we'd prefer was true.

*sigh* I guess I'd better start reading through those blog posts. I actually rolled up my sleeves before I clicked on this thread.

[Minerva]

Meant to add- I do applaud creationists for asking for proof, but it's astounding how they fail to see that there's no proof in their story, either. Also, I don't think many of them understand what "proof" means in science. We can never 100% prove anything. This is even harder when studying events of the past. Do they want us to uncover ancient video footage of monkeys turning into humans? (Bad example used on purpose.)

Of course it's ok for YECs to lie and say that there's no evidence for evolution, while expecting people to accept their dogma on faith alone. Who needs consistency?

[August]

Fish at least have the courtesy to drop dead when you get them. Creationists never do. Ever notice that their arguments change and adapt to fit what you throw at them? Oh, if only I had a word for that process! They're still crappy arguments.

So, they change a little bit from time to time and every so often one takes a little longer to refute so it becomes more widely used, but it's never an entirely new argument, for that you need a Jesuit.

[Minerva]

My turn:

In The Beginning – The Fossil Record

Naturally then, if Evolution is so widely accepted by Scientists, you would assume that fossils give at least some indication that evolution occurred, right? They don’t.

This is a lie. Transitional fossils are an excellent indication that evolution occurred.

Consider the bat, for example. Many modern Scientists believe that this creature evolved from mice. They believe this despite the fact that no intermediary stages of this transition have been found in the fossil record! Hundreds of fossils have been found of mice, and hundreds have been found of bats – yet zero have been found of a mouse in the process of transitioning into a bat.

Someone upthread debunked this claim pretty solidly, but I'll just add that all the author had to do was glance at Wikipedia to know that [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat#Classification_and_evolution]no one thinks bats share a common ancestor with mice[/link] and that not one but [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat#Fossil_bats]two transitional bat fossils have been found[/link]. You'll also notice that the author cherry picks which fossil records he discusses. He chooses to focus on bats, for which we have a particularly bad fossil record, while ignoring the animals, like whales, for which we have excellent sets of transitional fossils.

Now if this were the only occurrence of a gap in the fossil record, I would probably be willing to let it slide. But the fact is, this is true for every suggested evolutionary process Science has suggested. You’ve heard of “the missing link� Well this phrase is actually very misleading, for there would have to be hundreds of thousands of these links – and they are still looking for the first one!

That is a bald-faced lie. We have transitional fossils. It's true that we don't have hundreds of thousands of transitional fossils (we only have [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils]hundreds[/link]), but we aren't supposed to have hundreds of thousands of them. Fossilization is an unusual process and it's be fishy if we had hundreds of thousands of them. The fact that fossilization is uncommon cannot logically be construed as an argument against evolution. Furthermore, though we have enough fossils to prove that evolution happened, fossils are far from the only proof we have. We've observed animals evolving in real time, we have tons of molecular proof in the form of DNA and proteins, we have embryology, and we have the anatomy of modern day organisms.

Most of what are termed “missing links†such as Lucy and Nebraska Man have been found to be hoaxes. Actually, Nebraska Man turned out to be nothing more than a pig’s tooth!

The author is almost right about Nebraska Man. It wasn't a hoax, though, and the tooth wasn't a "pig's tooth". It was the tooth of an [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Man#Retraction]extinct peccary[/link], and it was genuinely mistaken for a primate tooth. The author's comment on Lucy: another lie. I cannot find any evidence, even on creationist websites, that Lucy is regarded by the scientific community as anything but a genuine transitional fossil. Also, most of them are hoaxes? I can only find two hoaxes: the Piltdown man and Nebraska man. Compare that to the [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_evolution_fossils]150 non-hoaxes[/link] that wikipedia lists for human evolution alone. That's not "most". That's less than 2%.

To quote Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionist himself, ‘The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages has been a persistent and nagging problem for evolution.â€

I bet the author doesn't even know what SJG was talking about. Stephen Jay Gould pioneered the theory of punctuated equilibrium. Punctuated equilibrium, an accepted part of evolutionary theory, is supported by the lack of transitional fossils. Therefore that quote actually supports modern evolutionary theory.

You can tell me that Evolution is possible until your blue in the face, but I don’t want theories; I want facts. Whether or not an animal could evolve is not the issue. I want proof that they did, and that proof just does not exist.

Well buddy, the facts are all there. 30 seconds and Google are all it takes to find the concrete evidence of evolution. It's completely lazy to sit there and demand proof when it's that easy to obtain.

ETA I only needed to cite wikipedia in my post. That's how widely available this information is.

[doggie]

Who wouldn’t want to know whether they are the magnificent creation of a loving God Who cares for them deeply,

I love this part. the god that has killed people for very little reason wiped everyone out on the earth made woman suffer because they fell for a promise because they were ignorant. Let people starve to death through no fault of their own. Children starved to death killed in war raped and brutalized by his own people. This is the god that cares so deeply??

[rmatone]

OMG I'm a Zoologist and this sort of things makes me so crazy. Miller-Urey proved years ago that if you have a hot little pond like ancient earth with water, methane , ammonia and hydrogen add a lightning spark - instant amino acids. Over 20 different kinds. amino acids - proteins - DNA :angry-banghead:

How do they explain the changes in dogs, birds and horse breeds over the years. ?

[samurai_sarah]

OMG I'm a Zoologist and this sort of things makes me so crazy. Miller-Urey proved years ago that if you have a hot little pond like ancient earth with water, methane , ammonia and hydrogen add a lightning spark - instant amino acids. Over 20 different kinds. amino acids - proteins - DNA :angry-banghead:

How do they explain the changes in dogs, birds and horse breeds over the years. ?

I think that's the part where you lost fundies. The only amino they know is Bragg's amino. You're not going to convince them that you can make humans out of that.

[Minerva]

Part two:

In The Beginning - DNA

Let me begin by clarifying that I am by no means a scientist, nor an expert on fossils, DNA, or any of the other things I have been covering in this series.

You got that right. You know less than the average 14-year-old on the subject.

However, even from the little insight that I do have into these aspects of Creation, it is clear to me that random chance could not possibly produce them. I say this because, though I do have a few good points to make about DNA in relation to Evolution, keep in mind that a learned geneticist would probably have much more to say on the subject.

Yes, learned geneticists do have much more to say on the subject. You wouldn't like what they have to say, though. A geneticist is a type of biologist, and [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution]well over 99%[/link] of biologists believe in evolution.

First of all, it is important to know that DNA is found in every living thing - even the simplest of single-celled organisms!

Funnily enough, this in itself is proof that we all share a common ancestor. That and the fact that the various genomes of organisms can be linked to one another and traced back to common ancestors. DNA contains all kinds of proof of evolution.

To put it as bluntly as possible, DNA tells our body how to operate. For instance, you could take all of the components that make up a human being and throw them in a pot, but you would not have a human; you would have a mess. DNA fixes that problem by storing information about our hair color, personality (and just about anything else you can think of), and then causes our body to function accordingly. In other words, DNA contains an immeasurable amount of complex information that is essential to our survival.

Close. DNA contains the code for every protein we will produce. That's all it does. These proteins collaborate with the standard properties of matter to make our bodies work from the cellular level up.

Now picture this:

While walking through the field, you suddenly come across a CD. After looking it over for any sign of what it might contain, you head home and stick it in your computer. To your surprise, it is filled with information on how to build a bicycle. It tells you the exact measurements for the tires, the type of chain to use, and every other piece of information needed to build a state-of-the-art bike. But instead of realizing that the information on this disc was obviously stored there by an intelligent designer, you conclude that this disc, as well as the information it contains, is merely the result of random chance. When people question you about how this could possibly happen, you explain that natural deposits in the earth’s crust collected, forming the disc, and that magnetic fields somehow caused this information to be stored in its memory. Still, people are uncertain of your theory, so you further expound that, over a period of millions of years, it is in fact very possible.

This analogy fails in four ways.

1. There is nothing self-replicating about a CD. Therefore there is no way that it changed over millions of years. Cells and their components, on the other hand, are self-replicating, therefore they can have changed and grown in complexity over millions of years.

2. This analogy implies that scientists claim that the complex genome of a modern day organism came together randomly in a primordial stew. This is not true. There is no universally accepted theory for how DNA first came about, but most hold that it started off as more primitive nucleic acids, which [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Monomer_formation]we've[/link] [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#RNA_world]proven[/link] can be synthesized inorganically.

3. There are many things about a CD that differentiate it from DNA, "creator"-wise. CDs transmit information as simply as possible, indicating that someone was actively searching to perfect them. DNA transmits information far more clumsily. (Imagine if CDs contained all kinds of unnecessary information, forcing your computer to sort through it all and figure out which is useful and which isn't. Imagine if CDs randomly used a 4-number code as opposed to the simple binary code. DNA does both of those things.) CDs interact with human-made machinery, indicating that someone made them. DNA interacts only with more rudimentary forms of itself (RNA) and simple molecules that have also been shown to be derivable from inorganic material.

4. The probabilities in the bike analogy simply can't be compared to the probability of DNA forming on its own. On one hand, in an area known to be accessible to humans, you've found an object identical to objects that you've seen humans create many times. The object is infinitely more likely to have been created by a human than by a random series of meteorological events. On the other hand, you've got a set of molecules that you've never seen created from scratch before, and for which you can find no evidence of a creator. What you should believe is a lot less obvious.

Thought this would be ridiculously absurd, DNA itself is more complex than any compact disc, and the information it contains is far more detailed than how to build a bicycle.

Yes and no. While eukaryotic genomes are definitely more complex than a bicycle, I would argue that most DNA is not. A state-of-the-art bike has roughly [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bicycle_parts]200[/link] parts. If each part had 5 pieces of information attached to it, that puts you at 1000 pieces of information. Viruses are the [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_history_of_viruses]most abundant[/link] DNA-having things on Earth, and their genomes [link=http://www.giantvirus.org/top.html]usually don't code for more than 200 or so proteins[/link]. Bacteria are the second most abundant, and while their genomes typically contain [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sequenced_bacterial_genomes]thousands of genes[/link], the most abundant bacteria on earth only has a little over [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagibacter_ubique]1000 genes[/link]. Even in complex eukaryotes like humans (though it should be noted that we're far from the most complex - the water flea has the world's most complex genome), that's not necessarily true if you're talking about the DNA molecule itself as opposed to an organism's genome. [link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome#Molecular_organization_and_gene_content]Over a third[/link] of human chromosomes are thought to contain less than 1000 genes.

The main failure of this argument is that it compares the complexity of a modern (presumably) human DNA molecule to that of a CD with bicycle instructions and asks which is more likely to have formed without conscious intervention. We know, however, that DNA could have started out very very simple and grown in complexity as it replicated. Therefore, it's more appropriate to compare the short genome required to keep a proto-cell running to a CD with bike instructions. And the short genome is obviously simpler.

Yet thousands of scientists consider it the product of Evolution.

Nope because evolution doesn't account for how DNA first came about. And the number of scientists who believe in evolution is easily in the millions.

They give no credit to a Designer, despite the fact that DNA cannot form spontaneously out of chemical elements. Yes, that’s right. Despite the common sense argument against evolution, Scientists must ignore their own laws in order to make their theory work. Doesn’t sound like Science to me!

False. There is evidence that DNA could have formed spontaneously. Is there nothing in the Bible against lying?

[Raptured_Pope]

This guy seems like he knows a few animal breeders. Assuming he (or an imaginary creationist you want to debate) is an animal breeder - dogs, rabbits, livestock, whatever - then he or she knows that evolution is a gol-dang fact. Any time he tries to breed characteristics out of or into an animal he's expecting some sort of Darwin-theorized evolution, not Godmagic , to occur.

And he'll say "So what? That's not evidence!" But that's on him, not you. :)

This took me longer to type than it would to say to him directly, but you get the idea. It's totally quick and painless and has nothing to do with "So I came from an ape?" argument-misdirection garbage.