Questions for Evolutionists?
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The test of any theory is whether or not it provides answers to basic questions. Some well-meaning but misguided people think evolution is a reasonable theory to explain man’s questions about the universe. Evolution is not a good theory—it is just a pagan religion masquerading as science. -Dr. Kent Hovin
NO FOUL LANGUAGE PLEASE!
Read the questions carefully and “go read a science book!” hardly justifies as a good answer
1. Where did the space for the universe come from?
2. Where did matter come from?
3. Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?
4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?
5. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?
6. When, where, why, and how did life come from dead matter?
7. When, where, why, and how did life learn to reproduce itself?
8. With what did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?
9. Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival? (Does the individual have a drive to survive, or the species? How do you explain this?)
10. How can mutations (recombining of the genetic code) create any new, improved varieties? (Recombining English letters will never produce Chinese books.)
11. Is it possible that similarities in design between different animals prove a common Creator instead of a common ancestor?
12. Natural selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity in the genetic code that must have occurred if evolution were true?
13. When, where, why, and how did: a) Single-celled plants become multicelled? (Where are the two- and threecelled intermediates?) b) Single-celled animals evolve? c) Fish change to amphibians? d) Amphibians change to reptiles? e) Reptiles change to birds? (The lungs, bones, eyes, reproductive organs, heart, method of locomotion, body covering, etc., are all very different!) How did the intermediate forms live?
14. When, where, why, how, and from what did: a) Whales evolve? b) Sea horses evolve? c) Bats evolve? d) Eyes evolve? e) Ears evolve? f) Hair, skin, feathers, scales, nails, claws, etc., evolve?
15. Which evolved first (how, and how long, did it work without the others)? a) The digestive system, the food to be digested, the appetite, the ability to find and eat the food, the digestive juices, or the body’s resistance to its own digestive juice (stomach, intestines, etc.)? b) The drive to reproduce or the ability to reproduce? c) The lungs, the mucus lining to protect them, the throat, or the perfect mixture of gases to be breathed into the lungs? d) DNA or RNA to carry the DNA message to cell parts? e) The termite or the flagella in its intestines that actually digest the cellulose? f) The plants or the insects that live on and pollinate the plants? g) The bones, ligaments, tendons, blood supply, or muscles to move the bones? h) The nervous system, repair system, or hormone system? i) The immune system or the need for it?
January 17th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Honestly, no one will sit here and answer each of those. I know you don’t want anyone to tell you to read, but educating yourself would be a good thing!
Anyhow you will get a lot of mixed up people here, better to get it from professionals. You may need more than one book
If you are really interested in this, maybe take a class? I loved studying evolution in college, very rewarding.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:37 am
Well I only read a few of your questions…..got bored and have one response for all the ones that I read and based on the theme of all your questions would imagine it would apply to all. How does the bible answer each and everyone of those questions to the detail that you wrote in your request. It doesn’t……..
I am actually a mix of both in terms of what I believe, which I think explains more. I do believe that we will never be able to truly understand the beginnings and how it fits together. The bible doesn’t explain many things that we have proof existed.
I think that people need to believe what gives them hope and solace to live a full life and to be accountable for how they treat those around them. What ever belief system allows that may be different for everyone and as long as it doesn’t hurt someone else they should be free to believe in it.
Just as you are free to believe what you believe.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:47 am
1. Where did the space for the universe come from?
science
2. Where did matter come from?
science
3. Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?
science
4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?
science
5. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?
science
6. When, where, why, and how did life come from dead matter?
science
7. When, where, why, and how did life learn to reproduce itself?
science
8. With what did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?
science
9. Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would only make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival? (Does the individual have a drive to survive, or the species? How do you explain this?)
science
10. How can mutations (recombining of the genetic code) create any new, improved varieties? (Recombining English letters will never produce Chinese books.)
science
11. Is it possible that similarities in design between different animals prove a common Creator instead of a common ancestor?
science
12. Natural selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity in the genetic code that must have occurred if evolution were true?
science
13. When, where, why, and how did: a) Single-celled plants become multicelled? (Where are the two- and threecelled intermediates?) b) Single-celled animals evolve? c) Fish change to amphibians? d) Amphibians change to reptiles? e) Reptiles change to birds? (The lungs, bones, eyes, reproductive organs, heart, method of locomotion, body covering, etc., are all very different!) How did the intermediate forms live?
science
14. When, where, why, how, and from what did: a) Whales evolve? b) Sea horses evolve? c) Bats evolve? d) Eyes evolve? e) Ears evolve? f) Hair, skin, feathers, scales, nails, claws, etc., evolve?
science
15. Which evolved first (how, and how long, did it work without the others)? a) The digestive system, the food to be digested, the appetite, the ability to find and eat the food, the digestive juices, or the body’s resistance to its own digestive juice (stomach, intestines, etc.)? b) The drive to reproduce or the ability to reproduce? c) The lungs, the mucus lining to protect them, the throat, or the perfect mixture of gases to be breathed into the lungs? d) DNA or RNA to carry the DNA message to cell parts? e) The termite or the flagella in its intestines that actually digest the cellulose? f) The plants or the insects that live on and pollinate the plants? g) The bones, ligaments, tendons, blood supply, or muscles to move the bones? h) The nervous system, repair system, or hormone system? i) The immune system or the need for it?
science
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Dan, you’re really spitting hairs here. As to your first two questions, no one knows for sure (neither evolutionists or people of the faith). Speculation at best. As for the rest of the questions, except for #6, you’re talking about the shape that life takes (evolution). It takes whatever shape or method that it needs in order to procreate. It does not need some divine guiding hand. The laws of the universe prevail. That is how it happens. It just is. It took over 15 billion years to become what we see now (not six thousand years, or whatever the bible says).
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:04 pm
These are way too many questions to ask on one posting. Each explaination for each answer would not fit the answer box.
I suggest the following:
1.) ask each question separately.
2.) Read a few biochemistry books.
I will offer my idea for question 15D.
If you like more information about evolution and the biochemistry behind it, please look at my previous posts.
________________________________
Asking what came first DNA or RNA is a good question. An even better question is nucleics acids or proteins?
I will offer my opinion to both.
I would suggest that RNA came first. There is something called ribozymes (RNA enzymes). RNA can form secondary structures and to enzymatic activity.
But, DNA is more stable, with relation to structure (Putting all hydrophobic regions (bases) inside the helix. But RNA can avoid this problem by forming secodnary structures, which they do. For example, the protien machinery in protien synthesis are ribosomes and tRNA. Ribosomes are essentially ribozymes. They contian both protein and RNA. tRNA is RNA in a secondary structure. Another RNA enzyme is called hammerhead ribozyme.
I would say RNA came first because is it much more simple to form and is found in all organisms (ie ribosomes, a very primitive protein).
Now what about nuclecic acids or proteins?
I say proteins came first. Please refer to the primordial soup model for proof that all 20 amino acids were formed.
Also look the primitive enzyme, gramcidian. It is made up of about 6-7 antibiotic molecules.
There is a lot to write, please look at my previous post to get more information.
If you further questions about the biochemistry of evolution, let me know.
good luck.
January 23rd, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Most of that has nothing to do with Evolution which is mainly about selection pressure adaptability and the ability to reproduce. it just means that successful adaptations go through to the next round of selection.
God needs a mechanism for his creation most of science simply describes this.
Q 1 and 2 a huge energy release form a point source the “sound” of that explosion st still around today and the universe is still expanding we don’t know why or how perhaps this was an act of God. Everything else from then on is explainable through the natural sciences.
Q10 If you transliterate Chinese into Pinyin you can write a Chinese book using English characters,
The language of genes is common to all life on earth it is written in proteins each triplet base codes for an amino acid and the chain of amino acids wrap up to form a functional protein. One gene codes one protein and proteins control all cellular activity. The sucuess of a mutation is determoned by natural selection as most mutations lead to disease or cancer and threfore deselection. the immune system
hunts down cells with funny protiens. Yet sickle cell disease gives people in malaria regions a survival advantage
January 26th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Your first 9 questions have nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is a theoretical model used to explain how populations of organisms change over time. How such organisms and the world they live in originated is outside the scope of evolutionary theory. Saying evolution is “bad science” because it does not answer these questions is akin to saying the germ theory of disease is bad science because it doesn’t explain how the planets orbit the sun.
Regarding the rest of your questions:
10) Mutations create new, improved varieties all the time. A major way is through gene duplication: duplicating genes removes evolutionary pressures against potentially harmful mutations and can allow genes to evolve different, novel functions. Gene duplication as a major player driving evolution has been accepted by the scientific community for the better part of the last 100 years. Indeed, Susumu Ohno had claimed back in 1967 that gene duplication is the single most important factor in evolution3. The reality is that new genetic “information” is added to genomes – yours, mine, every living organism’s – quite easily and quite commonly. I recently wrote a blog article about gene duplication and how it can lead to new adaptations; I would suggest reading it:
11) If similarities in “design” showed a common creator, then how would you explain differences between “designs”? Why would a creator copy some features but not others, especially between very closely related species? You would expect to see both similarities and differences with speciation from a common ancestor.
12) See my answer for question 10. This is a different facet of the same question.
13) I don’t know the dates for these transitions, but the reason is two fold: firstly, I am not a paleontologist and secondly, these transitions occured slowly, spread out over millions of years. There is no one exact date that reptiles changed to birds. The fossil record, however, shows us a range of approximate dates that these changes took place. I’m sure that a Google search would find them for you.
Your last two questions are basically the same: “When, where and how did X evolve?” The answer is, simply, I don’t know. We scientists don’t know for certain how many of those things arose, but we have some good ideas. Further research will surely provide insight into them.
There is an underlying message in your question, and that is “Evolution cannot explain ALL of these things, therefore it cannot be true”. Such a statement is patently false. A scientific theory does not have to explain all phenomena, but rather, a great deal of phenomena – or at the very least, more phenomena than other competing models. The interesting thing about evolution is that there ARE NO competing ideas. Evolution is the best model we have, the only one that can competently explain ANYTHING about life.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:01 am
I have answered all of these questions multiple times. Way to copy and paste, guy.
Use the Search function to find answers to questions that have already been asked.
Kent Hovind is in prison, by the way. Hardly a good role model. You should copy questions from the website of someone who isn’t a tax-dodging scumbag.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
1. Has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. Read a science book is a completely appropriate answer here.
2. See #1.
3. Ditto.
4. This is getting redundant…
5. See above. Read a book is looking more and more like the best answer to all of them.
6. Getting warmer, but this is abiogenesis, not evolution.
7. Life didn’t “learn” to reproduce itself. Some molecules are capable of spontaneously reproducing themselves chemically. Such molecules would naturally increase their concentration as long as the raw materials were available. No learning required.
8. Sorry, you really do need to read a book. This has been well-studied with simple eukaryotes such as yeast. Yeast is capable of asexual reproduction, but it also develops two mating types (a and a+) which can combine with one another to form diploid cells, which then split into haploid cells. It isn’t much of a stretch to see that the recombination of genes that results yields higher genetic diversity, and hence better ability to adapt to changing conditions. From there, it should be easy to see how exclusively sexual reproduction arose.
9. Evolution has nothing to do with the “wants” of the individual. Reproduction perpetuates the species. Any individual that “chooses” not to reproduce quickly eliminates itself (and hence, whatever genetic predispostion to this behavior) from the gene pool.
10. Methinks you’ve been reading too much Bill Dumsbki — err, I mean DEMBSKI. He has invented his own definition of “information” which is based on a SUBJECTIVE value he calls “specified complexity.” There is no objective definition for this term, therefore it has NO scientific validity. (Much like creationist “kinds” in this regard.) If a gene duplication occurs, and one copy later mutates, that IS new information, and exactly this occurence has been observed in the form of nylon-eating bacteria. So yes, READ A BOOK.
11. Only if that creator had INTENTIONALLY planted evidence to make it APPEAR that common ancestry was the explanation. Read up on the chromosomal fusion event in human chromosome 2, shared ERVs between great apes, etc. etc. I would rather believe in no god at all rather than a deceptive, spiteful, lying one.
12. Read up on genetic algorithms in computer science, and you’ll see that a process modeled EXACTLY on the theory of evolution spontaneously creates unique solutions to incredibly complex problems ALL THE TIME. Genetic algorithms are applied to engineering, industrial, and financial problems very often. There is a good chance that the next computer you buy will have a processor that was “evolved” using just such an algorithm. There is NOTHING in the genetic algorithm to “direct” the design along any particular path; there is only a survival criteria. This is EXACTLY analogous to natural selection acting on random genetic variation in a gene pool.
13. a) The two- and three-celled intermediates you describe are creationist STRAWMEN. The theory of evolution does not predict such intermediates, nor are they necessary for the theory to be true. For a more accurate portrayal of what a single-celled to multicellular intermediate might have been like, look up SLIME MOLDS.
b) The answer to that question is “we don’t know, yet.” To say, “Aha!! That must mean GODDIDIT!!” is inanely stupid, especially when EVERY TIME people have said that in the past, science has found a better solution… and one that actually, you know, progresses our knowledge and technology. (If we had stuck to your reasoning, we’d still be dying of plague, smallpox, and tuberculosis, mostly before age 40.)
c) I can’t believe any creatard would still be on this one. Paleantologists used cladistic analysis to PREDICT the age, location, and features of a fish-tetrapod intermediate. This prediction was borne out when they looked in the predicted location (Ellesmere Island), at the predicted rock strata (~365 mya), and found EXACTLY the predicted intermediate. Look up Tiktaalik roseae. (Not on answersingenesis, which is a site full of lies, but in a real science journal, like Nature.)
d) I’m not well versed in early amniote evolution, but that doesn’t mean the intermediates aren’t there. Your track record so far is pretty much zero, so I’m betting against you here as well.
e) Ever heard or Archeopteryx? Now before you go claiming it was just a “perching bird,” you MUST identify any living perching bird that: 1) has a long, bony tail; 2) has firmly rooted teeth; 3) lacks a beak or bill; 4) lacks a keeled sternum to anchor flight muscles. Can’t find one? Didn’t think so. Next…
Ever heard of the Yixian formation? This location in Xinzhou, China, is unique in that it experienced fairly regular massive volcanic eruptions over a period of 4 million years, burying its victims in fine volcanic ash that later solidified, preserving imprints of fine tissues. Guess what they found? Many, many dinosaurs with FEATHERS, in various stages of evolution.
Furthermore, dinosaur bones, particularly those of theropods (which coincidentally were the feathered ones), show hollow structure that is very similar to those necessary in the bird’s repiratory system. So it looks like those origins are getting clearer, too, and guess which magic man in the sky wasn’t involved?
The strikes against you are mounting. If this was a baseball game, I think we’d be at the bottom of the 8th, and so far it’s a no-hitter.
14. For whales, look up Pakicetus and Ambulocetus. Very clear intermediates there. (And a fine example of answersingenesis’ lack of credibility. They claimed for quite some time that the pelvis of Ambulocetus was not known, yet in the VERY FIRST SCIENTIFIC PAPER published on the species, the pelvis is very clearly described.)
I’m getting tired of your endless “show me this” creationist talking-points. I’ve shown you most of them (not that you’ll even attempt to investigate further), and besides, by my count we’re now well beyond the 9th inning, and you have lost. I’ll end this by saying the very thing that you don’t want to hear.
READ A SCIENCE BOOK! (And no, the Bible is not a science book.)
January 31st, 2010 at 3:05 pm
I won’t bother with your enumerated questions for reasons that are painfully obvious to anyone who is scientifically literate. You are wrong from the very beginning so I’ll try to limit myself to the first few sentences.
>Questions for Evolutionists?
Thank you for showing your colors from the beginning to warn all that what follows is a creationist rant.
>>The test of any theory is whether or not it provides answers to basic questions.
This shows ignorance of the word “theory” as used by scientists. The minimum that a theory must do is to explain a basic question. The minimum that a hypothesis must do is explain a basic question. The minimum that a wild *** guess must do is explain a basic question. Even the most primitive people without advanced science and technology can come up with something that provides an answer to basic questions. Saying that everything is the will of (insert name of favorite deity here) is an answer for everything. But, blaming everything on a god is a pretty lame answer.
The test of any good theory is exactly that. To test it. A good theory will make predictions that can be experimentally tested to show if predictions match observations. A guess or hypothesis that merely explains but doesn’t predict will never get to be a theory. A theory (using the word as used by scientists) has been tested and survived experimental verification.
The proposition that [favorite god of the moment] wills it is perfectly good at explaining but is terrible at predicting. It can’t be tested and it can’t be falsified so it can’t ever be a theory.
>>Some well-meaning but misguided people think evolution is a reasonable theory to explain man’s questions about the universe.
Educated and scientifically literate people know that the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is an excellent theory that explains and predicts how and why the frequency of genes in a population changes between generations. Only the uneducated and indoctrinated who simply parrot what they have been told without question (under pain of death at one time) would confuse the theory of biological evolution with a theory that explains the origin of the universe (Big Bang and Inflation), or the origin of matter and physical laws (Grand Unified Theory) or the origin of life (Abiogenesis).