Creationism as truth should not be taught in schools (Contender: Con)

I beg for the audience's understanding for this has turned into a creation vs evolution debate. First of all, please acknowledge that I have provided the evidence rather than naysaying in denial. From Round 2: "1) Embryology shows human embryos have actual slits like gills early on. This is the remnants left by fish billions of years ago. It may sound laughable, so I would suggest you Google it up and find out about it with a skeptical mind. I'm not lying. 2) Fossils show the gradual change of an organism through time, for example how Homo Habilis gradually became more "human" from being ape-like. Countless of other species also have fossils that show the gradual change into a new species. 3) Geographical distribution explains how organisms spread out with the continental drifts, like how a fennec fox evolved different characteristics to suit the desert, while the Arctic fox develops its own to suit the cold. Their 4) characteristics show how they evolved differently to suit their environment; along with observable similar characteristics of a group from the same ancestor, such as Darwin's reports on the birds of Galapagos Islands. 5) Genetics confirms it, like how human DNA is 96% similar to our biological cousins', chimpanzees. It is the same for every species on Earth." Yes, evolution remains a theory, but a scientific theory. Scientific theory: a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation. You might as well be saying gravity is just a theory and jump out the window. Ah yes, the coelacanth. Natural selection is what determines the changes of a species in evolution. If an animal, such as the coelacanth, is well-adapted to its environment, it does not need to change. Hence its characteristics remain the same. Another example for this is the crocodile, preying on dinosaurs in the past, but since it was so well equipped to survive, it did not change much - only its size changed, like the coelacanth. http://www.nature.com... Of course crocodiles and alligators are not the same species, Captain Obvious. I never implied they are. But they both had a single common ancestor, which also evolved into the gharial, alongside the crocs and gators. We know because of researching genomes. http://news.ucsc.edu... https://www.preceden.com... And Darwin isn't going to doom evolution. Science doesn't work on the opinion of his or any authority, let alone yours. Ah, the slits. I apologize as I forgot to add a source. Here it is: http://evolution.berkeley.edu... https://en.wikipedia.org... About photographic proof, again, please suggest how do we photograph a process millions of years in the making? I have seen that Darwin's quote. Here is your part: "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." Then he continues to talk about just because it's hard to believe, does not mean it cannot be true: "When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility." Your quote mining is futile and downright dishonest. Now, about creation. Now, I don't need to say how incredibly weak your "conjecture" point is. "The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered," Genesis 7:20. There simply wasn't enough water in the world for a global flood to reach an 8000 metre Mount Everest. Next, you provide only images from biased sources, with solely 1 image as proof of the dinosaurs. No scientific reports, no indication the items buried were from an actual Noah's flood, no credible sources, no citations, nothing. This is why I dismiss your images and memes. To test the "first couple", we can use genetics. Similar methods can reveal if you're a descendent of Genghis Khan. If there really was the first couple, our DNA wouldn't have much variation, and there wouldn't be different races. That is not the case. And fertilization of the ovum has nothing to do with the umbilical cord. I am glad to see how little of my "Evidence in contradiction to creation" Con has attempted to refute (weakly so). If you want to know where today's wide variety of species came from, and wanted to collect evidence, what kind of evidence would be relevant for this investigation? DNA? Coincidentally, the DNA of most animals with the similar characteristics, such as polar bear and grizzly, alligator and croc, human and ape, the DNA of these animals are highly analogous. Maybe it is not a coincidence. Let's find out more. Molecular biology holds more clues: early fetuses of many species share some characteristics. Animals can be observed to have adaptations that help them cope with their environment, escape predators, catch prey, survive. Fossils of animals that don't seem like any animal today are found, like Champsosaurus (in the link about crocs above), like Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, and these fossils are seen gradually getting similar to one animal from another. This is what evolution is. It doesn't just contain a mountain of evidence, all evidence points to the same direction that is evolution. Since Con does not have a good understanding of evolution, here is why there is no "living walking eating creature". Life started as simple self-replicating particles, such as viruses. How did this start does not concern evolution, evolution explains the diversity, the origins are left to abiogenesis, which is increasingly credible. Then generation after generation, they began to form a simple cell. Then another. The organisms slowly, after many generations, another cell developed in the structure, and this multicellular structure proved beneficial to its survival. It reproduced, slowly gained more cells, and slowly the first few species roamed, billions of years ago. In evolution, a "living breathing walking creature" did not just pop into existence as Con suggested. I trust that is how creation explains it. In his last paragraph, I guess Con is asking me to tell how abiogenesis explains the origin of life without using abiogenesis. Absurd, and irrelevant to the debate. In order to promote truth, schools should leave out the fairy tales like creation. The path to real knowledge does not stop you from questioning. Which explanation would you want your child to have, "here's how" or "God did it"?