Evolution vs Creationism

== Rebuttal == R1) Life from non-life Con claims evolution cannot explain life coming from non-life (abiogensis). However, scientists have simulated the conditions of the early Earth and seen RNA nucleotides form in these conditions. [1] If RNA could form naturally, it would explain life from non-life. The RNA could encode all of the information necessary to create a living single-celled bacteria. Natural selection would have operated on the RNA molecules so that RNA that coded for a living being would have been more likely to survive and be replicated than RNA that didn't code for anything useful. That was Richard Dawkins' main premise in "The Selfish Gene": that natural selection occurs at the level of the individual gene, which wanted to survive and replicate. We wrongly think of natural selection as operating at the species level. We know for a fact that RNA arose in the early Earth and that it could survive in non-living things because thats precisely what a virus is: a non-living entity encasing RNA in a protein. It's not a very big leap from a non-living virus to a living bacterium. R2) Human emotions Con claims that human emotions cannot be explained by evolution. However, this is a pretty easy one to explain. Emotions serve useful functions for survival and replication. Fear is a basic part of the fight-or-flight response that would have allowed us to escape predators. [2] Love and jealousy were ways to motivate us to find a partner and ensure that we weren't being cuckolded into raising a child that wasn't genetically related to us. [3] Pride and embarrassment are relevant to building and safeguarding our social standing, which is important for any animal that lives in social groups. [2] R3) Symmetry Con claims that symmetry could not arise by evolution. However, three responses. (1) There's a fallacy with working backwards from the improbable when it has already happened. Stephen Hawking noted this in "A Brief History of Time." An Earth capable of sustaining life may seem highly improbable, but there are bound to be some such planets out of the hundred billion galaxies in the universe. There's no point asking how we ended up with an Earth the perfect distance from the Sun, when we already know it happened. Highly improbable events do happen (e.g. someone has to win the lottery). The evolution of symmetry might not have been the only possibility, but it happened. There's no point asking "why." (2) Symmetry actually makes sense from the standpoint of natural selection. Animals with two legs run faster than those with one leg. Animals with two arms can lift heavy things, whereas animals with one arm cannot. Animals with two eyes have depth perception, whereas animals with only one eye do not. (3) We're not actually perfectly symmetrical. No one has perfect facial symmetry, for example. And some animals are not symmetrical at all. Pleuronectiformes, for example, have two eyes on the same side of their face. R4) The fossil record (1) First, it's important to understand that fossilization is an extremely rare event. When organisms die, they decompose quickly. Only organisms that die in very specific conditions, such as being buried in tar, can fossilize. [4] For this reason, the fossil record only gives us a small snapshot of far less than 1 percent of the species that ever existed. [4] In addition, only hard-matter fossilizes, so fossils of everything except vertebrates are extremely rare. [4] So we don't have anything *near* a complete snapshot of every species that ever existed. (2) We actually do have fossils from transition forms. The skeletal structure of Australopithecus afarensis demonstrates that it was only partially bipedal (i.e. walked upright but also walked using its hands), so it is part-way in between humans and apes. Pakicetids are a transitional form part-way in between modern horses and whales: they had hooves but had special membranes in their ears making them capable of directional hearing under water. It's important to note that modern cetaceans evolved after mammals *returned* to the water, so pakticetids were a transitional form between hoofed animals and cetaceans. Runcaria are a transitional form between non-seed-plants and seed-plants. Their "seeds" lacked a seed coating and they had no mechanism yet to guide the pollen to the seed. R5) Genesis 1:2 is confirmed by NASA Con makes this claim. However, remember my argument that if you make enough vague claims (as the Bible does), it's easy to later find confirmation from science. Con never responds to the fact that three biblical passages say the Earth is flat, six passages say the Earth is stationary (as opposed to orbiting the Sun), and three passages say the Earth is held up by pillars (as opposed to being held in its orbit by gravity). The Bible hardly predicts modern physics. In addition, if you examine Genesis 1:2 in more depth, it is clearly wrong. Genesis 1:2 says, "The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters." Genesis 1:2 says that the water of the Earth was already formed, but it was "dark," meaning the Sun had not yet formed. However, modern physics establishes that the Sun formed long before the Earth. [5] Genesis 1:2 also claims that the Earth and Sun were formed in 24 hours, which is clearly wrong based on modern physics. [5] R6) Missing links: revisited Con throws up a rather crude drawing showing a modern gibbon evolving into a human. First, here's a more accurate picture of all the intermediate hominid fossils we have. Second, this "missing link" argument is no different than the "fossil record" argument from R4. Cross-apply my answers. Fossilization is rare and is only a small snapshot of every species that ever existed. Third, Con's drawing is silly. Our common ancestor with apes would have looked nothing like a modern gibbon. It would have most closely resembled Australopithecus afarensis (pictured above) and as explained above, this species was partially bipedal and partially a knuckle-walker (like apes). == Underview == My suggested weighing mechanism for this debate is to evaluate (1) what side provided more plausible explanations and (2) what side left more questions unanswered, leaving more holes in their explanation. I have answered every question that Con put forward. Con has left key questions unanswered: (a) If God was the only witness to Creation, how the heck did this story get conveyed to humans? Is it not more plausible that we simply made it up and wrote it down? Other parts of the Bible are from ancient mythology, e.g. Leviathans (as Con concedes). There's no reason to think the Creation story was not also just a myth passed down through oral tradition. (b) If all animals were created at the same time and humans have had the gift of language since our creation (see Genesis 2:23), why didn't any human ever mention the dinosaurs that walked around eating us (e.g. the T-rex) or the other human-like creatures that were walking around (e.g. Homo habilis and Neanderthals)? Those seem worth mentioning. (c) Each rock layer in geological time is quite distinct. No modern animal has ever been found in a rock layer from a time before mammals evolved (e.g. a rabbit fossil in the pre-Cambrian layer). Creationism would predict that every species would appear in every rock layer because they were all created at virtually the same time. Why don't we see that? [Sidenote: debate convention dictates that there can be no new arguments or new responses to these questions offered in the last round, since I have no chance to respond.] Conclusion. I have poked numerous holes in Con's explanation for the origin of species. Con failed to defend the inerrancy of the Bible: dropping numerous biblical passages that defy modern physics. If we can't trust every word in the Bible, the key assumption underlying Creationism is decimated. In contrast, I have proven that mutations exist (something Con essentially concedes) and that selection occurs in nature (something Con cold concedes), so I have proven that the two mechanisms underlying evolution do exist. Evolution is the sum of its parts, and if the parts are true, the whole is true. Because evolution is the most coherent explanation for the origin of species (that was offered in this debate), vote Pro. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] Shariff, A. F.; Tracy, J. L. (2011). "What Are Emotion Expressions For?" [3] Robin Baker, "Sperm Wars" [4] Prothero, Donald R. (2007). Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters [5] A. P. Boss, R. H. Durisen (2005). "Chondrule-forming Shock Fronts in the Solar Nebula