Evolution

I will be making the case that evolution has logical and scientific flaws, and my opponent will defend evolution. I hope for an exciting and educational debate. Definitions When I say evolution, I am not interested in anything less than macroevolution. I myself believe in microevolution as well as natural selection. macroevolution –– The postulate that says all life formed from earlier organized non-life and through some form of mutation, natural selection, and enormous amounts of time. [1] You may say it is not a postulate but a theory, however, in order to be a theory it must 1) be observable, 2) be capable of repeated experiments, 3) withstand a fasifiability test. [2] The only type of evolution yet observed, has been microevolution –– "a change in gene frequency within a population." [3] This does not mean macroevolution has occurred. Consider the peppered moth story, claimed to have been "evolution in action." [4] This is microevolution, a change of frequency within a population by natural selection. There is no information gain, and in the end a moth has turned into a moth. In the mean time, I will try to figure out how T-Rex turned into a chicken. Flaws with macroevolution I. Genetics a. Evolution operates on chance. Random mutations, with the help of natural selection, must change animals from one form to another. While I do not deny natural selection, I do question how mutations can change a single-celled organism into a fish. In order this to occur, a huge amount of information-gain must occur within DNA. Let's look at mutation types: 1. Insertion of DNA segment 2. Deletion of DNA segment 3. Amplification of DNA segment 4. Inversion of a DNA segment 5. Translocation of a DNA segment 6. Point Mutation of a single nucleotide [5] In the first five, information is only lost or transferred, and point mutations can only replace a single nucleotide. Scientists have yet to find a mutation that is both beneficial to the animal and adds information to its genome. If it exists, it is extremely rare. Information gain is crucial to evolution, yet there is no evidence that it can occur. II. Irreducible complexity There are many biological structures that are irreducibly complex, meaning they will lose function if one part of the structure is removed. The classic example is a mousetrap, remove one part and it is useless and no longer a mousetrap. These structures could not evolve because the non-functional intermediates would not exist long enough to change into a functional structure. For example, the flagellum of a cell had to be created on site because it could not function with such intermediates. III. The chances of abiogenesis Evolution contests that an ancient primordial soup during early earth gave rise to the first life forms. The chances that amino acid bases, proteins, enzymes, etc. would come together on the spot to create a reproducing cell are, well, I don't want to say the chances are impossible, but I would be lying if I said otherwise. Fred Hoyle stated, ""Two thousand different and very complex enzymes are required for a living organism to exist. And random shuffling processes could not form a single one of these even in 20 billion years." [6] IV. Cambrian explosion "Evolutionary biology's deepest paradox concerns this strange discontinuity. Why haven't new animal body plans continued to crawl out of the evolutionary cauldron during the past hundreds of millions of years? Why are the ancient body plans so stable?" [7] The Cambrian Explosion refers to the sudden appearance of a host of complex organisms preceded by the Precambrian which contains simple one-celled organisms. We find every phyla represented today simultaneously in the Cambrian and all 38 of those phyla have not changed at all to this date. [8] Moreover, there were 50 phyla discovered in the Canadian, Chinese and other Cambrian sites. [9] Many species in the Cambrian that are found today show no differences. There has also been a decrease in diversity in these fossils, which is the opposite of what evolution would predict. Consider this quote from George Gaylord Simpson, "In spite of the examples, it remains true (as every paleontologist knows) that most new species, genera and families appear in the record suddenly, and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences." [10] This is not consistent with evolution. The main problem is that no new body plans appear in the rock layers above the Cambrian. How can evolution explain this? V. More on the fossil record We should find organisms in the fossil record to become increasingly complex, something crucial to evolution. There is no evidence for this in the fossil record. Also, transitional fossils would be expected to much more widespread in the fossil record. There have not even been any creatures proven to actually be transitional fossils (Archaeopteryx is a bird, not a dinosaur). Even if these creatures are really transitional species, they are exceedingly rarer than what we would expect. [1] [2] http://www.evanwiggs.com... [3] http://evolution.berkeley.edu... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] New Scientist, November 19, 1981, pp 521-527 [7] Jeffrey S. Levinton, "The Big Bang of Animal Evolution," Scientific American, Vol. 267, November 1992, p. 84 [8] http://www.evanwiggs.com... [9] [10] http://www.straight-talk.net...