Biblical Creationism is Incorrect

Again, I thank Con for this debate. Apologies for sass, it's late. --- 4C1: Intelligent Design 4C1A: "[P]rove ... intelligent ... design ... using a product of intelligent design ... circular reasoning." 1. Con accepts that using products of intelligent design (such as humans) to prove intelligent design is circular reasoning, and thus that Con's worldview is based on circular reasoning. 2. Circular logic is using the premise to prove the premise, which I am not doing. 4C1B: "Common sense ... is ... objective." 1. Objective means "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts," [1] that which can be logically proven to be true, NOT something most people share. 2. Humans (and thus common sense) are biased [2], and thus not objective. 4C1C: "DNA ... the brain .... [H]ow can you deny ... they were intelligently designed?" 1. The lack of evidence + Occam's Razor. Con have not provided a mechanism (which I asked for in Round 3, 2C1.1 [3]) to determine whether or not something is intelligently designed (other than flawed "common sense"), there is no reason that it is true. 2. If intelligent design is true, then there should be no errors in the universe. As I proved in Round 3, points 2C1B.5 and 2C1B.7 [3], there are. 4C1D: "Albert Einstein ... 'The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe.' " 1. Great. Then how can you know if something is intelligently designed? 4C1E: "[N]eed ... complicated ... to be scientific ... because there is design in the universe ... there must have been a designer!" 1. Please objectively prove that "Scientific laws need to be complicated to be scientific". 2. See 4C1C.1. 3. Design proves design. Wow. 4C1F: "[N]atural selection ... cannot create information." 1. Mutations often add "information" in the form of increased amounts of genetic material (through gene duplication error) [4], new genetic material and thus new phenotypes [4][5][6], and increased genetic variability in a population [4], as well as in other ways. 2. Evolution via natural selection provably adds order over time in the form of nested hierarchies [7]. 4C1G: "The human brain ... is the most complicated object in the known universe." 1. See 4C1C.1. 2. Michio Kaku is an astrophysicist, not a neuroscientist. 3. The human brain does have a massive amount of connections, most of which are formed via learning [8] rather than "design". 4. Evolution would favor a powerful brain. Because evolution is true, why couldn't the brain have evolved? 4C1H: "Citation two does support the claim that is succeeds." Morris is still an engineer, not an astrophysicist. He does not have the expertise required. This is a fallacious argument from authority. 4C1I: "[H]umans ... are comfortable[.] ... [L]ife could ... exist ... but ... would be ... bacterium[,] not ... conscious ... organism[s]." 1. "Comfort" again falls to the anthropic principle -- we are comfortable here, because we evolved to be comfortable here. 2. Citation needed. 3. This point is false. Dinosaurs lived in a low-oxygen environment [9] (different from Earth) and were quite conscious, and could potentially have evolved brains as functionally complex as human brains, if only a meteor hadn't showed up. 4C1J. "[N]ot ... each ... [star] of them can sustain life, let alone life ... as advanced as human life." 1. Yep. But seeing as a chance of habitability of 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,003 would make life probable, and given that life is pretty spunky (see 2C1B.8), this make it pretty likely that life and potentially conscious life could evolve. 4C1K: "The chance of earth and ... space objects colliding is ... slim[.]" 1. Circular means "circular", not "unlikely to collide with other planets". 4C1L: "The appendix strengthens the human immune system[.] ... Modern technologies ... has made the need for wisdom teeth nonexistent[.] ... The Plica semilunaris aids in cleaning the eyeball and acts as a third eyelid. Finally, goose bumps retain the body"s heat that would otherwise escape." 1. Vestigal: "having attained a simple structure and reduced size and function during the evolution of the species," [10]. These organs once had a full function, that since has been lost. Why wouldn't an intelligent designer just make a better organ to do these minor functions without any of the problems? 2. Citation needed for the coccyx. 3. The appendix allows appendicitis, which affects 140 of every 100,000 people [11]. Why not fix this and give the immune-helping job to another organ? 4. The Plica semilunaris acts as a third eyelid in reptiles, not humans [12]. I'd appreciate a third eyelid, dunno about you. 5. Con's citation disproves goosebumps as useful for humans [13]. "In animals with a thick hair coat this ... serves as insulation. In people this ... is useless because we do not have a hair coat," [13]. 4C1M. "[The Asteroid Belt, the Kuiper Belt, the Hills cloud, and the Oort Cloud] ... not ... disprove His existence." 1. I'm not disproving God. 2. These DO disprove intelligent design. Why put a bunch of potentially apocalypse-level objects next to the planet of the only race you care about? --- 4C2. "[N]atural selection can only operate on the information already contained in genes[.]" See 4C1F.1. --- 4C3: "I am talking about the innate ... sense that is there from birth in every human." Interestingly, so am I. It's quite evolutionarily useful for humans to act morally and not screw each other over. So why is God necessary? --- 4C4: Biblical Authenticity--- 4C4A: "[T]o prove Jesus ... while ignoring ... Gospel ... is like ... prove evolution without the fossil record." 1. The Gospels were written by extremely religious people who converted to an entirely new religion based on the word of mouth surrounding one dude. The fossil record is dead living beings. One of these sources is biased, the other is not. 2. Con should read the excellent 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution (http://www.talkorigins.org...) by Douglas Theobald, PhD, a biochemist (http://www.brandeis.edu...). Only 1 proof substantially requires the fossil record, making it quite possible to prove evolution via, say, the nested hierarchies present in Earthly taxa. (Apparently not so for Jesus.) 3. I'm not attempting to prove Jesus didn't exist, only that he didn't live the life depicted in the Gospel.. 4C4B: "Jesus ... was the most influential person in history ... so ... of course, He existed. ... His disciples' lives were changed[.]" 1. Influence does not mean truth. People have believed in lies. Consider the 39 members of Heaven's Gate who committed suicide in the belief that a UFO following the comet Hale-Bopp would transport them to "Their World". They had influence. Are they correct? Probably not. 2. See 4C4A.3. 4C4C: "Our calendar ... is based strictly off His birth." 1. If it is, then it's off a few years [13]. 2. See 4C4B.1. 4C4D: "There is ... no reason to trust any other historical document ... more ... then the Gospel accounts." 1. Why? 2. See 4C4A.1. 4C4E: No to mention, non-Christian historians, like Josephus and Tacitus, spoke of Jesus. 1. See 4C4A.3. 2. The passage from Tacitus, is likely fake, considering that it was not cited by early Church Fathers, who cited his books extensively, nor by Eusebius [14], that the passage puts Pilate as "procurator" rather than "prefect", interesting given that Tacitus was an imperial author [14], and that it's questionable whether Christians were called "Christians" by this date [14]. 3. The Josephian passages are, too, quite likely fakes, considering their brevity [15], lack of reference to before Eusebius [16], and contradiction of Joephus's faith [16]. 4C4F: "[W]hy ... take the Gospels literally. I ask ... "why ... not?" 1. Occam's Razor. 4C4G: "Plato or Socrates existed ... but there is ... more evidence of Jesus than both of them." 1. Citations are lovely. 2. Plato and Socrates were philosophers. Jesus was a living god. Different levels of proof required. 4C4H: "God has ... made it obvious .... what is ... literally and ... allegory[.]" 1. Which is why we have beliefs of Predeterminism and Free Will, of Rapture and Reverse Rapture, of Triune and Une (or whatever), of 144,000 ascending and of all Christians ascending. 4C4J: "Jesus" willingness to be ... executed proves ... He was insane, or ... what He said was true. ... NO ... evidence ... insane[.]" 1. And no evidence against -- because there's little evidence on the psychology of Jesus. We can't assume one way or another. 2. See 4C4B.1. --- 4C5: "There was no mention of "false diagnosis", so that falls." 1. No mention of something ALWAYS means that it didn't and couldn't happen. --- Summary: Biblical Creationism is either (a) unfalsifiable or (b) 14 billion years and a great flood off and baseless in an errant Bible that wasn't meant to be taken literally. --- References: [1] http://io9.com... [2] https://www.google.com... [3] https://www.dropbox.com... [4] http://www.talkorigins.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... (Lenski's website available here: http://myxo.css.msu.edu...) [6] http://en.wikipedia.org... [7] http://www.talkorigins.org... [8] http://www.sciencedaily.com... [9] http://www.natureworldnews.com... [10] http://www.dictionary.reference.com... [11] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... [12] http://en.wikipedia.org... [13] http://www.livescience.com... [14] http://www.truthbeknown.com... [15] http://freethoughtnation.com... [16] http://www.truthbeknown.com...