The Anti-Evolutionists Are Crippled By Questions That Undermine Their Entire Case

So this is the last round. Since Con has requested that I do so, I will indeed ask clear and concise questions throughout this last argument, but through doing so I will demonstrate that there are things I have brought up that Con has in fact not addressed at all. So let's begin: Lenski Con elaborates as to the reason he initially used the article which completely contradicts his position. It would have been nice if Con had clarified this back in R2. Nonetheless, I'm mystified as to how Con's explanation invalidates the position I've been promoting ever since Con brought up hoaxes. I have agreed that science has limitations and that newer theories come along which invalidate previously accepted theories, and I've also pointed out that the fact that those frauds ever got taught is despicable. But Con proves my point many times over when he points out nonetheless that it was still science that exposed those frauds. Particularly of note is that it was radiocarbon dating that exposed the hoax, the very thing creationists rail against! Furthermore, Con is gravely mistaken when he claims that even then the evidence for CD had been lacking, for there had been digs in France (Cro-Magnon) and Germany (Neanderthal and Heidelberg) that had found some of the earliest humans, thereby providing evidence for CD (16). While the motive of the hoaxers can't ever be fully analysed since we still don't know exactly who they are, it is very likely that British pride played a significant factor, since while other countries DID have fossils about early humans, Britain had no such thing. It's also incredibly hypocritical of Con to complain about Piltdown Man, and yet give no acknowledgment of Creationist hoaxes that are in fact still claimed to be fact today, or is Con ignorant of the promoting Creationists still do of Paluxy footprints, Calaveras Skull, Moab, and Malachite Man (17)? Con is absolutely right that PD was a disgraceful hoax, but his side is still trying to promote disgraceful hoaxes into the classroom! Con lambasts the use of the word "assume", but Con has been told so many times about how assumptions work in science that it's ridiculous. Again, any good scientific theory starts off with a workable hypothesis - an assumption - and then works from there, into experimentation (repeated constantly), submitting your work for peer review, revising your claim, retesting it and then submitting your revised work with something like a 10% chance of it getting published, and then other scientists around you spend years trying to pick apart your findings. It is only after all those obstacles that the scientific community may accept your results, after which your hypothesis graduates into becoming a theory. It is much more than an assumption, it is the culmination of years of rigorous, careful, thorough, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, replicated, peer-reviewed research that has obeyed the Gold Standard of scientific evidence wherein methods have been used to filter out biases and cognitive errors as much as humanly possible. A great recent example of such a method that proved CD can be found in Douglas Theobald's work with amino acids (18). Next, Con lambasts me for the fact that I point out that gill slits are present in vertebrate embryos, and uses a source I presented to do so. And yet once again a source Con uses contradicts him when it says "Why should human embryos have tails and build their faces from the same embryonic foundation that fish use to build gills? ", and also "one way to see "gill-like" structures in embryos is to see that they form a repeated pattern of lines in the neck. Of course, then we have to wonder why human embryos have these strange lines, and why all other vertebrates also have them", and finally "All vertebrate embryos have pharyngeal arches. Because sometimes these structures are referred to by the simpler term "gill slits" in textbooks does not mean that they do not exist or that the homology disappears" This therefore invalidates all of Con's Appeals to Emotion that he provides in his follow-up links on embryos, as the information on pharyngeal arches is in fact correct. And again, where's Con's outrage about Creationism's inability to self-correct, as pointed out above? Con engages in special pleading as, while agreeing that the organisms are indeed related to their ancestors, he uses special pleading to say that he doesn't believe it can happen in other species. His claim of "bacteria remaining bacteria" is absurd, as I've already explained what the equivalent would be in humans with regards to what happened to Lenski's bacteria. Con provides no evidence of a barrier. As for Genesis, I will concede that since Con believes in a Young Earth, the plants in theory would not be a problem. However, it quite simply does not suffice for Con to claim there was some alternate light source. If that's truly the case, then why the need to create the sun and stars at all? Furthermore, the stars cause a serious problem for any YEC interpretations as the chronologies of stars clearly date to millions of years old (19). There's also, as per my (2), the claim that the moon is a light as well as having whales and birds appear before reptiles and insects, in direct contradiction to science. Con's claim of a common designer also doesn't work considering that since the beginning Con has been claiming that "life can only come from life", meaning that the Designer MUST have been a living thing, and because of that, this equally requires that the Designer, itself, MUST necessarily have been Designed by SOME OTHER Designer. And following on from that, there has to be an infinite regress of Designers designing Designers etc etc worlds without end. Con could escape this by saying the Designer of humankind is, in fact, NOT a living thing"but if he does that, he can kiss his central premise goodbye. Or he could claim his Designer doesn"t NEED to have sprung from any other life; but this response, like the previous one, just plain old DESTROYS Con's premise for touting as his justification for invoking a Designer. He dismisses fossils, but again only with the "assume" remark that's been tackled above. Con gives a completely vague definition of "kind". Baraminology has been heavily criticised for this and how contradictory it is (20), especially since it's willing to class "dinosaurs" as all one "kind" even despite the differences many of them had, and yet genetically similar organisms like chimpanzees and gorillas get classed as two separate "kinds". Bias Some examples of religious claims refuted by science can include the notion the Earth was the centre of the universe (contradicted by Galileo), as well as the notion that God was responsible for all natural events (contradicted by Newton). Con also requests an alternate source for how to falsify common descent, so I shall oblige (21), although I will say that people like Lenski and PZ Myers and others hold RW in high regard. As for Con's complaints: 1) We don't know, but we're searching. God of the Gaps fallacy. 2) Anything mutations can do, they can undo. (22). 3) Fossil record. DNA. RNA. 4) The fact that this has been the subject of a peer reviewed paper shows otherwise. (23) 5) Watchmaker argument. Fails to differentiate between man made objects and naturally occurring ones. 6) This is pure fantasy, and conspiracy thinking. Previous individual hoaxes alone do not invalidate an entire theory. The fossil record succeeds by what we have as opposed to what we don't have. (24) Evolution Been Exposed Yet? Con continues to insist CD is "falsified", and yet provides no evidence for this, instead preferring to just label evolutionists as cultists in an ad hominem conspiracy theory style attack. Again, neither Q3 (motive) nor Q4 is satisfied (why we don't already know big time about it being false). Con has failed to answer the questions sufficiently.