Evolutionary Theory is a Farce

I get the feeling that my opponent is just simply ignoring my points about the social implications and just plowing on with his own failed rhetoric. Having said that, I won't be picking apart this specific argument because it doesn't differ at all from the previous arguments my opponent has made in relation to the social implications of evolutionary theory. This leaves me no choice but to repeat myself, which I do not like doing, but for the sake of the voting audience, I will break it down in easy-to-read points (If I'm not mistaken, this is the final round). -In regards to there not being any other theory that has had social implications comparable to that of evolutionary theory, I can do not much but sigh. My opponent fails to realise that every bomb, every gun, and countless other deadly weapons are the sole product of applications of varying scientific theories and principles. The example I have presented is the use of Albert Einstein's mass-energy equivalence in the making of the atomic bomb which killed over 200,000 people. However this is not to say that this is the only example of terrible social implications arising from a scientific theory. I ask the voting audience to just think about the countless deaths that arose from the creation of gunpowder, radar technologies, and electric detonation charges to name just a few. -A point that my opponent has rather impressively ignored is the fact that the social implications of a theory DO NOT have any bearing on the veracity of that theory. It is funny that he even tried to bring this up when trying to show that 'evolutionary theory is a farce'. Does the fact that Einstein's famous equation was used to kill 200,000 people make the equation any less true? Do theories simply do not exist when they have negative social implications? This is simply ludicrous. Once again, I'm not even conceding that accepting evolution CAUSES people to kill one another. Hitler spouting Eugenics as justification for his crimes doesn't mean he has interpreted correctly at all, or even that evolution tells people to kill and hate one another. Honestly, I'd go deeper into this if I felt that it deserved it, but I get the feeling I'm going to need these 8,000 characters. "In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. " - Carl Sagan I feel this responds very well to my opponent's claim that evolution is based of flawed ideas. You see, the thing about the scientific community is that it is constantly challenging and reviewing itself. The fact that something is discovered to be wrong is not a sign of weakness, rather, it is a good thing, because it makes the theory stronger. Of course fatal flaws in theories are generally quickly noted and the idea is discarded, such as with Cold Fusion in the 1990's. Your example of orthogenisis being flawed is nearly 100 years old, it was first noted by Darwin and was recorded in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (. http://wapedia.mobi...). Modern evolutionary theory has adapted to the challenges brought about by the falsification of orthogenisis (which was actually falsified by another scientist, not some creationist by the way) and as such it has come up with new and better explanations for the phenomena observed by orthogenisis. This is how the scientific community operates. It is being confirmed what I suspected in that my opponent lacks scientific experience, people in science are never considered 'frauds' if their hypothesis is faulty. No, the only 'frauds' are the people like creationists who refuse to try to prove their idea in the scientific arena. I seriously doubt your story that the evolution textbooks that you had at school contained pages that talked about orthogenisis, seeing as it has been knowledge in the scientific arena that this idea has been faulty, and the latest that people stayed true to this hypothesis was 1950 (. http://wapedia.mobi...). On a similar line, the hypothesis of Ernst Haekel being falsified (actually, his entire hypothesis wasn't falsified, just the strict literal interpretation) really has nothing to do with evolution being wrong. The very fact that this aspect was caught and addressed really is a testament to evolutionary theory and even more so to the work of Charles Darwin, which has withstood the strict scrutiny of the scientific community for the better part of 150 years. You have to understand that science isn't one guy sitting in a room deciding what goes into textbooks, it literally takes hundreds of thousands of people doing individual studies and reaching a consensus. You do not actually 'fully understand' my argument. My whole point is that the term 'micro evolution' and 'macro evolution' are used arbitrarily in a scientific sense. In fact, it isn't really a matter of debate, there really is no 'belief' in regards to the fact that macro evolution is nothing but many steps of micro evolution because both terms were coined by scientists and the terms are used only for simplicity. Your claim of accepting micro but not macro evolution is a logical fallacy. Contrary to my opponent's guess, the scientific community has pretty much come to a consensus on the speed of light in a vacuum. There certainly is not a 'heated debate' about its speed. This is not however to say that the speed of light is constant throughout the universe, for instance the speed of light on earth is slower than in the vacuum of space however the speeds used for calculations of distance is the speed of light in a vacuum which is commonly accepted to be 299,792,458 m/s. I hope my opponent realises that for his 10,000 year old universe idea to be even slightly feasible, it is required that we not only have the wrong speed of light, but we are many, many, many orders of magnitude off. I realise this is the end of the debate but I'd like to see evidence of this 'heated debate'. My opponent states how this isn't a debate about whether his idea explains phenomena better than evolutionary theory, however he is mistaken. It was said in the beginning that this debate was to be conducted scientifically, that is, religious arguments are not to be used for either party. Regrettably, I have not totally gone along with this, however I stated that my part about the speed of light need not be considered by the judging audience. If this debate was to be conducted using scientific arguments then it is required that we at the very least, coincide with the scientific method. . http://en.wikipedia.org... The way I see it, my job as CON is to defend scientifically the arguments against evolutionary theory presented by my opponent. My opponents task, if we are to do this debate in accordance to science is to not only present arguments that I cannot answer sufficiently (or, that evolutionary theory has no answer for) but also to present his own theory which is capable of answering the phenomena observed better than evolutionary theory. This is how a scientific debate is conducted, and my opponent has failed. Why you should vote CON - My opponent has no answer for my rebuttals on radiometric dating, his 'tree' example, the age of the earth, mutations, human evidence of evolution, and index fossils. If you would note his final round, he makes no mention of any of this. - Social implications of a theory have no bearing on its veracity. - My points that my opponent should answer (abiogenisis. .. etc) are still standing and unaddressed. As I had noticed, one cannot falsify a legitimate theory through an internet site.