Abiogenesis
Scientists are simply giving something impossible a fancy name so it sounds like it’s possible when it’s really not. Non-living matter does not have the potential to become living matter. First, they claim living things can evolve, then they claim non-living things can. Plus, Louis Pasteur debunked the belief that life can come from non-life with experiments.
AI says:
Louis Pasteur's experiments in the 19th century effectively debunked the theory of spontaneous generation, which is a form of abiogenesis, by demonstrating that life does not arise from non-living matter. His work established the principle of biogenesis, which states that life only comes from existing life. (emphasis added)
Cells
Again, a unicelled organism does not have the potential to become multicelled. Where do the extra cells come from? And where did the cells come from in the first place?
Rationality
You said:
This one is easy. Rationality arose over a long period of time as natural selection favored the more intelligent.
Actually, it’s not easy. This one is the hardest out of all of them. Rational creatures can grasp immaterial concepts. How would that arise from material? Rationality itself is immaterial, it cannot come from matter. Animals can’t simply just get smarter and smarter until they can think rationally. Rationality is a whole other concept.
Structural Homology
You said:
Denton's quote is from 1985, and modern genetics has long answered this concern. We now know that developmental pathways are flexible. Different genes can produce the same outcome, especially over millions of years of divergence. Homology is about shared structures from shared ancestry, not perfect genetic copies
First of all, Darwin was the one who originally came up with the idea that similar bones meant similar ancestors. He was the one who didn’t have modern genetics. He’s the one who was outdated. You ignore the point, if the bones are truly evidence of common ancestry, it should also be shown in the DNA. This point alone does not debunk evolution, but it shows that structural homology can no longer be used as evidence for evolution. At best, it is inconclusive.
DNA
Again, evolution may not claim that it should alway be found in DNA, but this shows evolution is not consistent with the data. Using DNA in no ways benefits the theory of evolution.
Scientists choose to cherry-pick and then blame others for “cherry-picking”. It’s ridiculous.
Summary
Thus far both of us have proved that evolution is not consistent with the data. All you have tried is to show it doesn’t contradict the data.
Now I will quote some scientists
Variability within a species is not indefinite. There is a limit beyond which variation is impossible. - Wilhelm Johannsen
The origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. - Francis Crick
Now Some Quotes from Creationism
“The only thing all evolutionists agree on is that Evolution is a fact.
Distantly related species cannot produce offspring. More closely related species may produce hybrid offspring which may be sterile (a horse bred with a donkey results in a sterile mule).
Breeders have to be very careful in selecting males and females (intelligent breeders using artificial selection). Natural selection has no intelligence behind it.
Sexual reproduction has no advantage over asexual reproduction. Any genetic characteristic has a 50% chance of being eliminated through sexual reproduction.
Genetic mutations are almost always harmful, if not benign. The accumulation of genetic mutations is known as the “genetic load.” If the genetic load becomes too high, a species will not be able to reproduce and will become extinct.
In the survival of the fittest, the fittest are defined as those who survive. This is circular reasoning as can be shown: Who survives? The fittest. Who are the fittest? Those who survive.
Intelligence is independent of the size of the brain. Einstein had a smaller than average brain.
Language has devolved from more complex forms to more simple. Some of the languages of “primitive” tribes are very complex. Ancient Greek and Latin are more complex than modern languages.
Walking on two feet has disadvantages relative to walking on four feet (speed and agility).
Radioisotope dating methods are based on the assumption that the elements are decaying into simpler forms. This is the opposite of evolution.
The so-called vestigial organs have been found to have uses. Similar organs in different animals often develop differently in the embryo. The idea that embryos develop through their respective stages of evolution has been refuted.
Homo sapiens (wise man) is essentially superior to the other animals because he acts in an essentially superior way (art, language, religion, science, etc.)
Rocks are used to date fossils. Fossils are used to date rocks. This is circular reasoning. The geologic column does not physically exist anywhere in the world. The Grand Canyon has at least five large “gaps.”
There are no transitional fossils in the fossil record. Not only is there a missing link between apes and man, the links are missing between every species. There are no known links between invertebrates and vertebrates, or between fish and amphibians, or between amphibians and reptiles, or between reptiles and mammals.
Evolution of birds is a major problem (feathers, lungs). Archaeopteryx was a bird with teeth. There are modern birds with teeth.
Plant evolution has not even been seriously discussed among scientists.
Fossils from all phyla are in existence in the Cambrian rocks. This is fatal to the theory of Evolution.
The book has an extensive discussion on hominid/hominoid fossils. All are either apes, men, or frauds. The Piltdown fraud was not revealed until 40 years after its “discovery.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was involved.
It has been called the greatest hoax in the history of modern science.
Neanderthal men are true men. Their skulls are larger than modern men. Cro-Magnon men were larger than modern men and their skulls were also larger.
Some evolutionists have given up on gradualism and switched to saltation, or punctuated equilibrium, or hopeful monsters.
In Manchester, England, over a period of 50 years the peppered moth population changed from almost exclusively white to almost exclusively black. During this time industrial pollution changed the color of the tree trunks upon which the moths sat from light to dark. Predatory birds could better see the moths when their color contrasted with the color of the trees. The moths did not change at all; only the ratio of the black to white colored individuals. The story of the peppered moths does not demonstrate evolution in action.
Teleology, being a metaphysical topic, simply transcends the concepts of biology.
Gradual evolution is problematic; the mutant chicken cannot wait for the mutant rooster.
In scientism the denial of final causality stems from a materialistic bias, whereby nothing which transcends matter is tolerated. Matter fails to be an ultimate explanation of effects.
Abiogenesis (life from non-life) is not tenable. Life only comes from life – Law of Biogenesis.
Adaptation has been shown to be due primarily to geographic isolation.
The long epochs of time required for Darwinian gradualism appear to be an anomaly in that more species would tend to perish than be generated. Extinction rate is about 1000 per year. It [theoretically] takes tens of thousands of years for a new species to emerge. Of all species that have ever existed, 99.9% are extinct.
Salamanders and lilies have more DNA than man.”
- Evolution and Other Fairy Tales reviewed by Eric Bermingham on November 11, 2006.
I will admit that some of the examples quoted above aren’t exactly the best, but they do show how evolution is opposed to the traditional understanding of metaphysics.
Con
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