Creationism (Pro) vs Evolution (Con)

Transitory Fossils: Let me first state that no well-informed creationist would state that speciation cannot occur as it is phenomenon observed today. Note when looking at the skulls, I have a few legitimate concerns. You assert that the skulls look older and more broken down as you go up to fossil A, however there are plenty of outside factors besides time that could give the skulls their look. What environment was the skull retrieved for instance? Another thing I would like to bring up is what conclusions can be made from these skulls is subjective and up to interpretation. As Harvard paleontologist Dr. Stephan Jay Gould states, "Facts do not "speak for themselves"; they are read in the light of theory" [1]. The paleontologists that unearth these skulls already with the belief that ape-like creatures evolved to modern man will see these skulls as transitional. However, I can disprove the assertion that man has evolved from ape-like creatures using genetics. If you look at the human genome of around 3 billion base pairs and if let’s say that our genomes were 95% similar to that of chimpanzees you would have a 45,000,000 pair difference. Not to mention that the Y chromosome between humans and chimps are extremely different. A Chimp’s Y chromosome has only two-thirds as many distinct genes or gene families as the human Y chromosome and only 47% as many protein-coding elements as humans. Also, more than 30% of the chimp Y chromosome lacks an alignable counterpart on the human Y chromosome and vice versa [2]. Calculations from population geneticist Haldane prove that it is mathematically impossible for this many mutations accumulating in the supposed millions of years we had to diverge from each other [3]. As with the transitional fossil that is the missing link between fish and amphibious tetrapods can be proven to be wrong. Tetrapod footprints have been found that are older than the supposed age of tiktaalik, one of the transition fossils in Con’s diagram. It can’t be a transitional form if its descendants are older than the transitional form itself [4]. The Size of Noah’s Ark: First off, let me first state that God did not tell Noah to bring two of every species on board. But rather in Genesis 6:19-20: “19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.” [12] In the original Hebrew text, the term behemah is used meaning “cattle” or “beast” so typically land vertebrates. The Hebrew that refers to the creatures that “moves along the ground” which is remes is used often to reference reptiles. God also did not necessarily tell Noah to bring every plant whose seeds could survive the flood or in floating vegetation patches. God also didn’t tell Noah to bring the sea creatures, most of which would survive the flood. [11] Con also didn’t take into account that the original animals on the ark are free to speciate in their own rights. Radiometric Dating: The main problem with radioactive dating is that it lies on a bunch of untested assumptions: Parent/Daughter isotope ratio in the beginning Constant rate of decay No contamination There has been evidence that radioactive decay is not always constant as seen with Beryllium [5]. Radioactive decay has also been shown to fail on objects with known dates. Potassium-argon dating of mineral concentrates from the lava dome formed by Mount St. Helens returned ages of millions of years and yet the age of the lava dome is known as the eruption happened just decades ago [6]. There are also instances where radioactive elements are found in objects assumed way too old to be found in. For instance, Carbon 14 has been found in diamonds assumed to be billions of years old when there should be no Carbon 14 left [7]. I expect that my opponent might try to counter with isochron dating but this also produces false results on rocks of known age. Radiometric dating along with isochron dating that was used on lava flows of known age that were created during the 20th century have returned astronomical results. Despite decades old, the rocks yielded ages of 133 million years with Rb - Sr, 197 million years with Sm - Nd, and 3.9 billion years with Pb - Pb. [13] True age of the Earth: Quick Note: Con’s source for this is broken it appears (I won’t hold it against you though. Live Science URLs are rather finicky from personal experience). My response is in the findings of Dr Robert Gentry on the helium retention of zircons. In zircons, uranium decays into lead and helium. And in various zircons, uranium is found that has partially decayed into lead. From dating the uranium, the age of the zircons is believed to be 1.5 billion years. Because of the size and the fact that helium reacts to nothing, helium easily leaks out and should almost be completely absent from the zircons. However, the amount of helium still present is significant. Dating the zircons by the amount of helium still in the minerals yields an age of between 4,000 and 14,000 years consistent with the biblical timescale. [15] Starlight: Part of the answer to Con’s starlight objection can be found in Einstein’s theory of General Relatively which predicts the phenomenon of gravitational time dilation which states that time can be altered with gravity. Take for example the satellites in orbit that travels through time faster than Earth by hundreds of microseconds a day which can add up if the clocks up there don’t adjust themselves. Time dilation also occurs as the fabric of space expands in the universe. The fact that the outermost reaches of the universe travels through time faster than on Earth can help explain stars thousands of light years away. Since the creation of the sun and the stars, the bible has stated the God has continued to “stretch out the heavens” and if the universe was smaller at the beginning of creation, then starlight isn’t a problem. [10] (Note on Newton’s laws: I’m not arguing that light speed was different so this sub-argument is irrelevant to what I am arguing. By the way, you quoted the wrong law. It is actually Newton’s First Law of Motion. [14]) The Fossil Record: Con portrayal of the fossil record is over simplistic claiming that it is perfect and there is no mixed up fossils. However, there are fossils that don’t belong. For instance, there was a dog-sized mammal fossil found with a small dinosaur in its stomach. Yet during the time of the dinosaurs, there aren’t supposed to be mammals large enough to eat dinosaurs [8]. Not to mention, there are mechanisms that can explain the general order of the fossil record that are consistent with the idea of Noah’s flood: Ecological zonation (such that different life-forms in different strata reflect the serial destruction, transport and burial of ecological life-zones during the Flood) differential escape (the smarter, more endothermic, and greater mobility an organism has, the higher in the fossil record it will tend to be) Hydrodynamic sorting (i.e. the smaller, denser, and more spheroid organisms are, the quicker they will settle out of the Floodwaters into sediments) [9] I would go into more detail into these mechanisms but as I am low on time I cannot but I will in later rounds along with my other rebuttals. On to you Con……………… Sources: [1] Gould, S.J. (1941-2002), Ever Since Darwin, W.W. Norton, New York, NY, pp. 161-162, 1977 [2] Hughes, J., and 16 others (including David Page), Chimpanzee and human Y chromosomes are remarkably divergent in structure and gene content, Nature 463(7280):536–539, 28 January 2010. [3] http://creation.com... [4] http://www.livescience.com... [5] Huh, C.-A., Dependence of the decay rate of 7Be on chemical forms, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 171:325–328, 1999. [6] http://creation.com... [7] http://creation.com... [8] Hu, Y., Meng, J., Wang, Y. & Li, C. “Large Mesozoic mammals fed on young dinosaurs,” Nature 433:149–152, January 13, 2005 [9] http://creation.com... [10] http://creation.com... [11] A.J. Jones, ‘How many animals on the Ark?’ Creation Research Society Quarterly 10(2):16–18, 1973. [12] The Holy Bible [13] http://www.icr.org... [14] http://www.physicsclassroom.com... [15] http://creation.com...