Evolution

My opponent spent most of his argument arguing religion again. At this point, I will completely ignore it and cut to the chase. "How do you know it would be good for us? Have you tried food like that? Has anyone? This is pure speculation." I never said it would be good for us, I simply said that it would be edible and we could survive off of it. Just as McDonald's isn't "good" for you, but you can survive off of it. This is not pure speculation, it is logical that even with another kind of DNA, the animal would still be digestible. As mentioned, it is not the DNA of the organism that we need, it is the nutrients. As long as the organism has the necessary nutrients, I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be able to eat them. "Now how does he know the single-celled life forms turned into multicellular life forms? He doesn't, its just assumed because he can't imagine any other way for them to get there, but I can imagine creation by God." It's not assumption, it's logic. What's more logical? That God just "poofed" more animals into existence? Or that they slowly transformed over millions of years? Also, it can be noted that evolution becomes more rapid as time goes on. So does that mean that God decided to "poof" more things into existence faster? Or that because of the increasing number of organisms with different traits, it has become much easier for evolution to occur? I believe that I know the answer to both questions and so does my opponent, but unfortunately, our answers differ. So I ask him this. Why would God decide to create all of these beings that came way before us such as dinosaurs? Just to "confuse" us? Seems silly to me. "And how does he know these dates are even correct? No one has lived 2, 570 years to see if C-14 actually takes that long for half of it to decay." It is not necessary to live 2,570 years and watch the decay occur. You could watch the sample for one year, see how much has decayed and apply that to a bigger scale. Through observation, we have created several equations that help us figure out the half-life. I doubt that hundreds of scientists all around the world didn't just make up a number and call it the half life of C-14. http://www.hps.org... http://web.mit.edu... "Pro thinks the size of the skull determines the level of intelligence, but men's skulls are larger than female skulls and men are not more intelligent than women." No, I never said that larger skulls meant more intelligent. I said that species with a larger brain to body mass ratio are generally considered to be more intelligent. Humans happen to be at the top of this heap with the largest brain to body ratio. "Pro thinks he isn't much different from a chimp because some scientists classified him in that bracket" It's not "some scientists". The man who came up with the modern classification system was a qualified scientist and since HUNDREDS of scientists all around the world do not try to change this system, it is reasonable to assume that is has some backing to it. It groups organisms by their physical traits, pretty logical. "Scientific American reports that we'd need 300 years to full our memory capacity" I believe my opponent misinterpreted his source. It says "You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage." We memorize much more than just images, as a TV would. We have 4 other sensors, touch, taste, smell and audio. http://www.scientificamerican.com... "when I see a chimp compose a symphony, or do a simultaneous equation I'll believe it." Chimps can perform many feats of cooperation, communication and memory (in many cases, superior to humans). They mourn, show sympathy and take care of each other. Just because the organism can't speak any human language doesn't automatically mean that it's a stupid barbaric being, as many humans like to believe. http://www.nytimes.com... I actually have very little to refute, since my opponent only spent a small portion of his argument on evolution. Here is some more interesting information: Because of the way viruses work, they move small amount of DNA from one organism to another. A mapping of the human genome showed that it is littered with pieces of "foreign" DNA. This is another process that affects the rate of evolution. http://www.dailygalaxy.com... To my disappointment, my opponent has spent very little space in his arguments debating evolution itself. He was straying almost the entire time from the current subject of debate, to things such as religion. We are not arguing "Creationism vs. Evolution", we are only arguing about the logicality and validity of the theory of evolution (as the title says). My opponent has not managed to convince me to even doubt the theory that I have presented in this debate. In conclusion, I believe that evolution is a very reasonable and logically-sound theory. Thank you for the good debate and forgive me if I was rude/aggressive at any point during this debate.