Debunking Creationism

[debrand]

Here is one. The second law of thermodynamics somehow proves evolution is wrong. I heard that in Sunday School but I don't remember the speaker's reasoning.

[Austin]

Here is one. The second law of thermodynamics somehow proves evolution is wrong. I heard that in Sunday School but I don't remember the speaker's reasoning.

IIRC from my many YEC classes in Christian school, that's the one that explains that everything is moving from a state of order to a state of disorder and chaos, which is supposed to disprove evolution because essentially the exact opposite is happening if evolution is to be believed.

[Bookworm]

Here is one. The second law of thermodynamics somehow proves evolution is wrong. I heard that in Sunday School but I don't remember the speaker's reasoning.

Basically, the reasoning in that case is, the second law of thermodynamics means that in a closed system things will inevitably decay, become less complex, move towards equilibrium – ultimately, a heat death situation.

Creationists use that to say that how could things have evolved, become immensely more complex for millions of years, despite this law? They will say that the law is true; therefore, when God created the universe everything was "very good" and since then it's been getting worse and worse, thus genetic diseases, Columbine, climate disasters, etc.

I was rather taken aback the first time I read a scientist say that the earth is NOT a closed system – the universe is, but the earth gets tons of energy from stars, particularly the sun, all the time. Thus, the second law is still true, but does not apply to our situation.

[Constance Vigilance]

Human chromosomes. Aren't they pretty? 46 in all (except in abnormal cases -- like in Down syndrome, there would be three 21s). Each is a single molecule of DNA. They are in all of the cells in your body. Together they make up your "genome" -- your genetic code, all the information your body needs to make you.

Now compare a human and a chimp (showing one copy of each chromosome pair):

Humans are black and yellow. Chimps are black and white. "The main difference between humans and chimpanzees is chromosome 2 (upper left). In chimpanzees and other great apes, this consists of two chromosomes, 2A and 2B, but in humans these have merged."

Sure, we aren't related. Sure, we didn't come from a common ancestor. :roll:

Edited to get the images to work, and to clarify.

[emmiedahl]

Here is one. The second law of thermodynamics somehow proves evolution is wrong. I heard that in Sunday School but I don't remember the speaker's reasoning.

I will tackle this one.

First, I would like to point out the obvious fallacy that NOTHING EVER becomes more complex because of the second law of thermodynamics. Did we all not grow from a single cell to large, complex creatures? By the creationists' reasoning, we are already breaking that law. Does that mean that we are breaking the laws of science and science is sooooo stupid and inaccurate? Nope. It means that creationist reasoning sucks, and that they are showing their scientific ignorance.

The second law of thermodynamics holds that things naturally tend toward disorder and entropy over time. "Naturally" is an important pat of that sentence--I'll explain in a minute. But an example of entropy is: you have a rock that is pure... whatever it is. Over time it is eroded away into grains of sand that spread across a large area. It has become more chaotic, mixing with other elements and such. It is now mixed with different things, and if you want a chunk of pure whatever-the-rock-is, you will need to either look elsewhere, or sift the grains out of the dirt, purify them by melting point, and then melt them together. It takes energy to reverse entropy and chaos, although this can certainly be done without breaking the law of entropy. Entropy refers to a natural tendency toward chaos, something that can be seen in my own house.

Natural laws refer to what happens without the input of energy. Living systems have energy that we use to get around these laws. That is, we pump blood up to our hearts despite gravity. We fly airplanes, also getting around gravity through the use of energy. The use of energy to perform vital functions and to defy natural laws is what makes us alive. Oxygen is a huge part of this energy cycle, which is why we die if we do not breath.

Many living things use energy to defy the law of gravity, and we also use it to defy entropy--but that actually increases the entropy of the universe, which totally follows the law. We take those grains of sand (or carbon, or amino acids, or trace elements), separate them and use them to build a more complex structure. We do it using energy from the bonds that hold atoms together. That bond energy we use is partially lost to the world--following the law of entropy. We take in food, break it down into its components, glean energy from chemical bonds, use what we can and excrete the rest, and we do it several times a day. We basically transfer the entropy in our bodies to food and nutrients; we use the energy in food to feed a complex, less entropic system inside, but that creates more chaos outside. The net change to the universe is more entropy for each human being that has been here. And that is what the Second Law of Thermodynamics refers to: net change in the universe.

So, we 'break' the second law all the time because that is what life forms do--but it is not really breaking that law because we are increasing disorder in general. Evolution is the same thing. We are using energy to run this important aspect of life, and increasing entropy on the outside of our bodies as well. Net change=more disorder.

[BoomerLynn]

I don't really have an argument to debunk but this thread made me think of my old high school biology teacher. He was also a pastor, and he taught evolution as well. His argument against YECs was to ask them how long they thought one day was for God. According to him (and this could be completely wrong, I never looked into it), the order of things being created in the Bible was fairly close to the order life on earth evolved. Basically he believed that a day for God would be equal to billions of years for us. I thought it was an interesting way to look at it.

[thoughtful]

I don't really have an argument to debunk but this thread made me think of my old high school biology teacher. He was also a pastor, and he taught evolution as well. His argument against YECs was to ask them how long they thought one day was for God. According to him (and this could be completely wrong, I never looked into it), the order of things being created in the Bible was fairly close to the order life on earth evolved. Basically he believed that a day for God would be equal to billions of years for us. I thought it was an interesting way to look at it.

That's why I posted the link to the film of Inherit the Wind. That's one of the arguments in it -- if God is all-powerful, God's "day" might not be the same as ours.

[BoomerLynn]

That's why I posted the link to the film of Inherit the Wind. That's one of the arguments in it -- if God is all-powerful, God's "day" might not be the same as ours.

Thanks. I'll have to check that one out. :)

[Kitty]

I don't really have an argument to debunk but this thread made me think of my old high school biology teacher. He was also a pastor, and he taught evolution as well. His argument against YECs was to ask them how long they thought one day was for God. According to him (and this could be completely wrong, I never looked into it), the order of things being created in the Bible was fairly close to the order life on earth evolved. Basically he believed that a day for God would be equal to billions of years for us. I thought it was an interesting way to look at it.

Yeah, it isn't far off.

Given the tendency of OT writers to exaggerate figures to make God sound freakin' AWESOME, I'd say that even ancient Hebrew shepherds were a damn sight more observant than fundies today, they just wanted their God to sound cooler than anyone else's.

[icecreamycakeycake]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--es4FGw ... e=youtu.be

[Boogalou]

I saw this on facebook this morning (because my friends post stuff like this instead of religious rants) and thought it was funny.

[AnnoDomini]

Ok ok, I thought of another one, which my family likes to use. Somebody sees a manmade object; say, a glass candlestick. He assumes rightly that it is a manmade object, created by intelligence, not by random chance of nature such as the sea. The Creationist question is, why not the same attitude applied to the earth and all its wonders and creatures?

This argument is seen as rather incontrovertible evidence for intelligent design and against evolution in the ID community.

[Mais Pourquoi]

Ooh, I was just remembering this creation class series we had in junior high sunday school:

-Reptiles continue to grow throughout their lives.

-Back in the pre-flood days, there was an extra atmosphere ("God made sky between the waters") that caused a more tropical climate, which is why old bible guys lived to their 900s.

-Therefore, dinosaurs were just really large lizards that just don't live long enough anymore to get that big.

Also, in that same class, we did some sort of hands on activity with formaldehyde soaked fetal pigs. :? I'm not sure what the point was. Sanctity of pig life?

Ignoring all of the other stupidity in this argument for a moment, what does a more tropical climate have to do with living longer? Last I checked people who live in warm, humid places have just as long a lifespan as everyone who lives in more temperate/cold places. Also, giant tortoises (and even smaller turtles) can live for well over a century but they never grow to the size of a dump truck.

As for the pigs, what exactly did your class do with them? In my Ebil Public School biology class we dissected them in teams so that we could learn about anatomy, and got bonus points for removing things like the brain or eyes intact.

[Constance Vigilance]

Ok ok, I thought of another one, which my family likes to use. Somebody sees a manmade object; say, a glass candlestick. He assumes rightly that it is a manmade object, created by intelligence, not by random chance of nature such as the sea. The Creationist question is, why not the same attitude applied to the earth and all its wonders and creatures?

This argument is seen as rather incontrovertible evidence for intelligent design and against evolution in the ID community.

When you look at a man-made object, you know it is man-made because you can see evidence of the process that made it (its shape, composition, etc).

So the ID argument rests on the idea that we have no idea/evidence of a process (other than god) that can have created living things. Which is bollocks.

As soon as you know about DNA and natural selection it becomes very clear how livings things came to be. You can look at one animal and see all the traits it shares with species that are closely related to it, and how the changes (adaptations) it has compared to the other species have made it better able to live in its environment. You know how it has acquired those changes (evolution over time). If you get out a microscope and some reagents you can actually look AT the DNA and see which of it is different and which of it has stayed the same. You can literally look at the results of this process.

I look at a living thing, and yes I see the hand of what has shaped it. But the 'hand' is evolution, not god.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Question. Is there a difference between evolution and adaptation? My husband works with a man who says that he doesn't believe in evolution but believes that living things adapt. Isn't that a part of evolution?

From a fundie point of view (a fundie who insists on creationism and literal Genesis but believes in drug-resistant bacteria and uses modern medicine) the difference is that adaptation, or small scale evolution, or whatever they want to call it today, involves animals and plants changing but importantly they don't believe that one KIND can change into or develop another KIND.

"Kind" is the key, God made certain "kinds" of animals (you can look up "baramin" for more info) and inside those kinds, animals can morph, but the kinds are fundamentally separate and most importantly, humans are a very special kind.

You can find this idea in the Creationist museum in Kentucky. It has a plaque showing how wolves developed into all kinds of modern dogs, and how the proto-horse sort of animal turned into various horses, but they will insist that dogs and cats have been created as separate kinds for all eternity and share no common background (and of course the same is true of humans and apes).

(Of course it's all bogus, but that's the argument and distinction.)

[Constance Vigilance]

From a fundie point of view (a fundie who insists on creationism and literal Genesis but believes in drug-resistant bacteria and uses modern medicine) the difference is that adaptation, or small scale evolution, or whatever they want to call it today, involves animals and plants changing but importantly they don't believe that one KIND can change into or develop another KIND.

"Kind" is the key, God made certain "kinds" of animals (you can look up "baramin" for more info) and inside those kinds, animals can morph, but the kinds are fundamentally separate and most importantly, humans are a very special kind.

You can find this idea in the Creationist museum in Kentucky. It has a plaque showing how wolves developed into all kinds of modern dogs, and how the proto-horse sort of animal turned into various horses, but they will insist that dogs and cats have been created as separate kinds for all eternity and share no common background (and of course the same is true of humans and apes).

(Of course it's all bogus, but that's the argument and distinction.)

And the fact that fossils of the in-between animals exist, and that we can see by their DNA that they must have had a common ancestor....?

Willful. stupidity.

(Thanks for elucidating that, gardenvarietycitizen. I didn't know the basis of the fantasy distinction.)

[gardenvarietycitizen]

This was my husbands answer to a bunch of snarky creationists asking...

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

"First came the pool of primordial soup that spawned the simple cell-based life that mutated into distinct creatures that spread across the nutrient-rich earth and evolved (over millions of years) into the small flightless winged dinosaur that laid the first egg whose genetic mutations resulted in the bird that has evolved into what we know as the chicken."

My usual slightly shorter answer along the same lines is, the egg. Why? Because the first chicken egg was necessarily laid by something that wasn't quiiiiiiite a chicken, but close.

The mutations and shuffling combinations that happen to make change occur in the mom to egg link of the chain. Mom wasn't quite a chicken, but made a chicken egg.

[holierthanyou]

Can anyone explain the role of "Floating Forests" in the creation of the earth? I saw it at the Creation museum in Kentucky, but was too ignorant (in general science) to understand what point of science they were trying to refute by claiming that there were once large floating forests on the earth.

Ps. That creation museum is beyond amazing. I went with two other non-fundies and we all agreed it was better than Disneyland (for us).

[gardenvarietycitizen]

And the fact that fossils of the in-between animals exist, and that we can see by their DNA that they must have had a common ancestor....?

Willful. stupidity.

(Thanks for elucidating that, gardenvarietycitizen. I didn't know the basis of the fantasy distinction.)

No problem :)

Fossils? If you're progressive enough to believe they really are the preserved bones of dead animals (rather than some trick played by Satan or God), no problem. Those weird animals are either extinct specimens of a kind that has completely been wiped out (see: dinosaurs) OR they're extreme examples of either dog kind OR cat kind, but absolutely one or the other because kinds are enumerated in the Bible and that's that. The rest of the flimsy "wannabe science" is always laid on that fundamentally non-scientific foundation, that a piece of ancient literature is true and can't be contradicted. That's what makes it anti-science no matter how many spiffy lab coats they put on during the video.

So you've got weird cats and weird dogs and dinosaurs. (But not a catdog, that's blasphemy.) Then, they all died in layers during the worldwide Flood. Some ran faster than others, different types of animals have different average escape speeds, so they died kinda one sort of animal at a time, in layers. You can find books explaining this view, as well as self-guided audio tape tours, at the Grand Canyon. You can also hear about it on the Jonathan Park Radio Show.

DNA? Who even knows what that is... until recently.

Absolutely DNA is becoming a problem for creationists, in particular the way that DNA analysis is backing up all the same "we observed it, and this is what we think" categorization done by earlier scientists setting up the usual "tree of evolution" or whatever you call it.

(Back in the real world, the fact that we share 99% of DNA with chimps shouldn't be too surprising when you consider just how complex the basic building blocks of DNA itself and all the amino acids and the energy system are, how complex all the minutiae that just goes into the basic language of a CELL is, and the vast majority of life on this planet is built on that same language and framework. My cells use the same language to encode proteins as those of an amoeba do.)

Some fundies trying to make a 5,772 year old (just as of this past September!) earth work with modern carbon dating and science will claim that fossils and ancient rock layers are the remains of previous Creations that God made before this one.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I would love to visit the Creation Museum someday. But in the meantime, if you can't go on your own, you can enjoy a hilarious tour of the Creation Museum from Demonbaby. Warning: It contains lots of swears. They are not kind in their appraisal!

It's got lots of pictures though, zoomable, so you can read the lessons and text for yourself!

[finleeport]

I would love to visit the Creation Museum someday. But in the meantime, if you can't go on your own, you can enjoy a hilarious tour of the Creation Museum from Demonbaby. Warning: It contains lots of swears. They are not kind in their appraisal!

It's got lots of pictures though, zoomable, so you can read the lessons and text for yourself!

Those pictures were quite scary. Why would they make that for kids?

[Constance Vigilance]

Those pictures were quite scary. Why would they make that for kids?

Hell's scarier, dontcha know, so we have to make sure they know how to fight the libruls. /fundie

[houseworksucks]

The Banana argument is my favorite! At a party last night we were discussing it, and all agreed that since a banana fitting in your hand and mouth well indicated the presence of God, clearly God wishes for us to put any well fitting object into any of our holes.

[Constance Vigilance]

The Banana argument is my favorite! At a party last night we were discussing it, and all agreed that since a banana fitting in your hand and mouth well indicated the presence of God, clearly God wishes for us to put any well fitting object into any of our holes.

:clap: :clap: I WISH there was a like button.

[emmiedahl]

That science picture is going up on my Facebook right now!