E v. C

My opponent continues to believe that he can establish the truth of creationism by attacking evolution, saying "By arguing against one, I provide support for the other." This is a false statement. His further statement "the support is in no way firm unless I present arguments making it so." brings his ideas closer to the truth. My opponent has yet to establish a single argument in favor of his motion. I apologize for my mis-numbering; it should be obvious to the reader that the 5 should have been a 6. As regards to my opponent's second source: I originally explained why it was not reliable but ran out of space. It was unreliable because it did not contain any actual evidence, only assertions. The fact that it was a creationist source was immaterial my complaint about it, rather, I was complaining because it was a source that made many assertions with no foundation, and the only thing I saw that it cited was something that I cannot reference. I did not watch the entire video, nor do I intend to, but the place at which my opponent referenced (10:00) was simply not a reliable source of information. This is part of the problem with video evidence, and why I asked that my opponent refrain. This is in contrast to Wikipedia which, despite my opponent's claims, is far from "unsourced". I welcome him to scroll to the bottom of any page, where the "References" section is located. My opponent complains several times about a perceived "caricaturing" of his arguments. He has not made any in support of his position yet, and has yet to actually say what his position is; it is therefore impossible for me to caricature it. If he would like to actually establish his position next round, I would welcome it. He has also once again filled the text box, such that I cannot possibly make my argument and rebut his points. Thus, I will not be rebutting his points this round. Instead I'll be making at least part of my own case. And so: Evolution says that small changes happen. This is an undeniable, witnessed fact. It says that changes which hurt an organism will hurt its chances of reproduction and, therefore, make it less likely for that harmful change to be passed on, while changes which help an organism will help its chances of reproduction, and, therefore, make it more likely for that beneficial change to be passed on. We can, with trivial ease, duplicate both these things in the lab; no creationist can deny these thigns without denying evidence they could easily have before their eyes. Indeed, Con has already admitted that there are both beneficial and harmful changes to organisms. Where the disconnect seems to occur is, that evolution says at a certain number of changes, an organism is sufficiently removed from its original state to be "speciated". This does not mean that the animal is so vastly different than its parents that it is unrecognizable, but rather that it has reached a point where it is different enough from the original species to be reproductively isolated. The quesion is, how did this speciation occur? The Creationist, in particular the YEC, says, "There is a god. He created the world 6000 (+/-) years ago. He created every animal in basically its current form. Evolution doesn't happen." What this ignores is that Evolution DOES happen. Provably, demonstrably so. The YEC, in rejecting evolution, is creating an artificial distinction between so-called "macro-evolution" and so-called "micro-evolution". The YEC draws a line at an arbitrary point and says "no animal can change, genetically, enough to get past this point". They establish no mechanism for that (and Con has yet to propose one). Perhaps it is so, but the YEC has no evidence to establish that it is so. Science presumes consistency. We see that small changes can add up to big changes, and science has given us no reason to suppose that there is some line of demarcation that species cannot change past. Thus, science says that it seems most likely that the process of animals changing over generations continues until one, eventually, gets wildly different species. The YEC attempts to show how unlikely that is, but considering it's post hoc argumentation, it's quite a bit like trying to tell an arbitrary lottery winner they didn't win, because the odds of THOSE SPECIFIC NUMBERS coming up are astronomical. In this debate, we're asked which is most likely closer to the correct answer. We know, for a fact, and even Con agrees, that some measure of evolution happens. So we must ask, which is more plausible: That the universe is exactly as old as all the evidence shows[1], and that the mechanism we've already seen work on the smaller timescale of human life[2] explains the variety of species on the planet? Or that a deity (whose existence Con has failed to establish), came down 6000 years ago (a timeframe Con has failed to specify or establish) and made first the universe, then all the animals in roughly the same form (or "kind") that they are now, and that they cannot change "kinds"? Until Con establishes some kind of case for the necessary elements of his position, it seems clear that the most likely answer is the only one that has any evidence to support it, that is, an old earth, upon which evolution has produced many different species. [1] http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov... [2] http://www.talkorigins.org...