Debate: Creationism vs. Evolutionism
Side: evolutionism

Part III:22. Hybrids(Viable hybrids are indeed rare. Generally this actually helps promote speciation by forcing the species to go off in different directions. There are a few exceptions, especially in ring species, where new formation of species does occur, but this is one of the more rare methods of speciation and only works if the closely related species haven’t been fully separated.)As far as the differentiation between Kingdom, genera, phyla, etc., these are all rather arbitrary terms created by man for the purpose of organization. There is no separate process for each one, the main delineations iare time and the concentration of factors molding the specific group. (If we needed to have separate methods for each level, we would also need separate sets of DNA for each level, but one singular set is all we get and ends up being all we need. As AronRa says, “If it is possible to walk 20 feet, it is possible to walk 20 miles.” The difference is in the time taken and the change in scenery.)23. The instinct of AnimalsHis quoting of Darwin is not well carried out here. He basically just bulldozes past the points made by Darwin with the cry of “but it is so impressive what honeybees do,” a point which Darwin himself concedes. But once again, nature being impressive is not really relevant here. Life works, and evolution particularly favors the special traits that provide advantage, fine-tuning them over time. Also, he seems to supporting Lamarck’s view of adaptation, something which had already been thoroughly discredited by the 1920s. (A fair amount of genetic research has not only shown how animal instincts evolve, but even the more complex variations of instinct displayed by humans.)24. Special Creation: Genesis 1Lots of problems here, but as you said, we are talking about evolution. We can come back to this if we want to debate the veracity of the Bible. For now, I will move on, but am happy to return to this later, or in a different debate. 25. Analogy; Mathematics, Laws“There is no evolution in the science of mathematics. There is no change or growth or development.”Apparently he has never heard of Calculus. That is EXACTLY what calculus demonstrates, and the reason why all scientific fields employ calculus is because they need to in order to make proper sense of the evidence. And those logarithms that he so loves turn up heavily in calculus.As far as physical laws, yes those themselves don’t change. But their presence creates a very wide range of possibility depending on what they are being applied to, while simultaneously setting certain boundaries for every object. The rule of cause and affect determine which of the finite realm of possibilities is expressed within a certain object in certain conditions. The interactions between various cause-effect relationships change the range of possibilities continuously, and frequently in a temporal fashion. Everything that we have ever examined, even the universe itself, has shown signs of change, and ripples of change radiate out from all events, influencing the nature of anything in contact. There is not a single field of science that would work if this principle wasn’t true, and even religions employ this concept to varying degrees. EXISTENCE IS CHANGE.26. Desperate argumentsEvery field has people in it that say ludicrous things that are not supportable by evidence. These statements can be ridiculed and put to bed, while our attention focuses on the more sensible and supported arguments made. One form of “desperate argument” is to imply that the lunatic fringe speaks for the whole, which is all that Rev. Williams is trying to do here.27. 20 Objections AdmittedSo many of these are not linked to their specific sources, most our out-of-date, and at least of few are heavily out of context. This is called quote mining, and is a devious ploy used to attempt to add credibility to one’s claims. I have already invested too much time in this, and am barely more than half-way done, to respond to each of these, especially since I don’t know the context in which most were said. Part II: Evidence answered29: Paleontology, 30: Confessed collapse of “Proof.”I already mentioned the updates in research concerning these species, and admitted that Piltdown was a fraud. No need to go back into this for now. (Much has changed in this field over the last 8+ decades.)31: Pictures in CavernsIt is true that these pictures are crude, that exact dating in some places is almost impossible, and that speculation is required to interpret what they mean. I don’t have any denial of that. But it is very weak and rarely used supporting evidence at best, so I don’t have any problems letting it stand. 32: Vestigial organs. He once again ignores the possibility of change that is so intrinsic in evolution. If he didn’t so adamantly refuse this notion, he would see the answer right there in the theory. Basically, part of the quality of an organ is related to the environmental factors involved. People and animals that descend from Himalayan stock have slightly different (more efficient) lungs than those whose ancestry has always been at or near sea level. In this case, the specific organ itself changed, and that’s pretty much the end of the story. But this isn’t always how it works. Significant changes over time and geography can affect the functionality of certain organs, particularly as full speciation occurs. Its basically a change in allocation of chores, some systems take over the roles of others, while others get more specialized. It can get complex, and I’m not sure I’m really trained enough in biology to fully explain it. But I can try to muster up the time to do more research and give a more thorough explanation later, if you desire. 33. Serology, or Blood TestsThis is a pretty interesting subject, and another one for which I am not really knowledgeable enough to make much a comment. But, if I properly understand the point he is trying to make, he is implying that this line of inquiry is inconclusive. If that is true, than fine, we can dump it as supporting evidence for evolution. Considering how conclusive thousands of other lines of evidence supporting evolution, I don’t mind letting go of a few. He can have this point.34. Embryology (It is true that at this time, embryology was pretty much at a dead end. The big reason was that we needed to understand and map DNA code first, which was still a few decades away from happening. While it is true that some lines of morphological evidence heavily supported evolution (and still do), there were too many gaps in the understanding that were unbridgeable at the time. But this is no longer the case. Now that we have an idea how genetics works and have developed very sophisticated tools to observe and measure embryonic development processes, embryology has become one of the fastest growing and most sophisticated fields of biology. It has provided a goldmine of evolutionary proof, but has also helped us understand a great variety of diseases and birth defects. The fact that we have used evolutionary principles to find ways to successfully cure or mitigate these conditions shows that evolution corresponds very nicely with reality. This is all new though, so I don’t blame him for not knowing about it. But it works and is being very heavily investigated as we speak. Most of the primary scientific supporters of evolution these days come from this field.)Part III: The Soul35: The Origin of the SoulNot a shred of evidence here that the soul even exists, just contempt for those who believe that the vague concepts ascribed to the vague notion have physical components instead of spiritual ones (and to this date, psychology, neurology and biology have failed to find much, if anything, that cannot be ascribed to the chemical, hormonal and energetic processes observed in each field.) Further, religions have conflicting and sometimes mutually exclusive notions of what a soul really is and how it functions. None can draw from any authority except their holy books and esoteric philosophy. 36: PersonalityPersonality is a very complex concept, one that is formed both by nature and nurture. (Quite a bit can now be explained by neurology.) Even in his time it should have been obvious that personalities change within a person over their lifetime, and that different people have different responses to certain kind of events. This indicates that at least part of it is not hardwired, thus not necessarily reliant on evolution. And if he thinks that animals are devoid of personality, I argue that he never had cats or dogs. And his closing comments on this section are just tedious reiterations of his obvious inability to grasp how evolution is proposed. Its rather sad to see him so passionately argue against a concept that he simply can’t grasp. Which is rather common in this debate. 37: Intellect, Emotions and WillPretty much a combination of my responses to the above two points. By identifying these things as spiritual, he isn’t even allowing room for physical origins (although, to be fair, physical evidence for such things didn’t really exist in his time. Now we have bushels of it.) Further he ignores that some animals do display intellect, emotion and even willpower. He clearly hasn’t worked closely with animals. 38. Abstract reason(Now that we are successfully establishing lines of communication with primates and cetaceans, we are aware that they do have the capacity for reason. Higher species of birds are also apparently capable of it. The sophistication is somewhat less, but then so are their brains. Also, the developmental capacity of reason is molded by how the animal lives and the situations it has to deal with. Cetaceans don’t really have the ability to develop ways of building things, but since their power to manipulate the environment is so limited, this is hardly surprising. They can, however, solve puzzles and make intuitive assessments of the environment. Crows and their relatives can too.)But there is more to it than pure physiology. The basic capacity for reason is inherent within us, but the amount of fine-tuning we give it advances through the generations. And mostly, it happens in states of incremental development. Just as a child has to learn basic math to understand algebra, so too does a society have to learn how to harness fire before building an internal combustion engine. It took us a while to get the ball rolling, but the development of society spend it up immensely. And it continues to. 39: ConscienceSigh, here we go again. (Once again, explained by neurology, with new evidence being gathered almost daily.) And some animals do display signs of a conscience. He just ignores it flatly because he can’t let himself realize that almost everything that man does has an equivelent in the animal kingdom. And all of his questions about “why don’t animals have this trait”, even if they were true, could be reversed by asking “Why doesn’t man have wings?” Different creatures went on different paths, and adapted accordingly due to numerous factors, the gestalt of which were mostly personal. 40: SpiritualityThe short and quick explanation goes like this: Man has always been curious and clever, more so than most other animals. We also have an apparently distinctive trait: We don’t like letting questions go unanswered. In the childhood of humanity, few things were understood, and our ancestors could not abide that. Investigations were made, but we simply didn’t have the tools to answer all of our questions. So we started making them up. Religion served to comfort us, and allowed us to focus on the task at hand. It provided answers that made sense at the time, but generally only dealt with questions that didn’t actually NEED to be answered in order to guarantee survival of the species. It was an intellectual placeholder that made us more comfortable in our ignorance. But as we emerge into a less ignorant species, we come to realize just how incorrect some spiritual answers are, while others are inconclusive or can be dealt with just as easily in secular philosophy. Non-religious spirituality is pretty much just a warm fuzzy, but religion is frequently used to establish control over a population, and as support for power from religious leaders. It is a result of certain activities intrinsic to our species existence (although we now have some evidence that Neanderthals may have had religion as well!) 41: Hope for ImmortalityA sad weakness in our species that has nothing to do with evolution.42: Sin, 43: RedemptionTools used to keep society in check. Fairly valuable concepts that actually have secular counterparts in law and personal interactions. But treated purely as religion, they do a better job of keeping religious leaders in power than in actually solving any of humanities problems. 44: Evolution aids infidelity and sin“Many evolutionists frankly declare that the purpose of evolution is to destroy belief in God, or his active control of his creation.” And if I were to meet such a person I would have to give them a stern talking to. Evolution is not a moral code nor an attack on moral codes. (The basis for morality is now known to be physical, but that still doesn’t mean that evolution discourages moral behavior. Indeed, quite the opposite, as morality is beneficial to the survival of social species, and so it is actually good to have it around. But we don’t need religion to implement it.) As far as his attacks on atheist societies, these would be just as relevant as attacks on theist societies who have gone to war over deities. Evil exists on both sides of the theistic fence. But evolutionary theory has little to say about it, as it is based on a specific realm of observation. It is a wholly different subject, and if the religious want to believe in evolution, they are more than welcome to. 45. Evolution Wars with ReligionHis heavily biased tirades and rhetoric are wearing thin. Once again, evolution doesn’t directly comment on religion. It simply makes observations. It doesn’t refute God, it simply says that if God does happen to exist, evolution is the tool he used to create the variety of life on Earth. Almost all of the earliest researchers in the subject were Christian, and most of them stayed that way. They didn’t see a conflict. Sure, it does seem to refute a literal interpretation of the Bible, but many Christians don’t take the Bible literally. They can get what they need out of it even if it is “merely” a collection of parables. This “war” we are seeing is waged by Creationists who are empowered only by emotion and fear that if the Bible is untrue, than so is God. The evolutionists don’t operate on fear, simply observation. 46: Camouflage of Terms:Evolution: As a basic English word, evolution simply means “change of time.” In the scientific usage, it is further refined to mean change in a specific direction. The Biological definition of evolution refers to change in species over time. And finally the Biological Theory of Evolution is the theory that attempts to explain how it happens. It is rather unfortunate that the English language has so many words with multiple definitions, but that is just how our language developed. And indeed, most creationists themselves can’t distinguish between all the words. Not our fault. Science in this context is basically short hand for Modern Naturalistic Science. And he still doesn’t know what a scientific theory is. No wonder he is so confused. Religion: (I don’t know what evolutionists in his time were saying, but the modern evolutionist is quick to point out that evolution is most certainly NOT religion. Indeed, we have to tell that to creationists themselves, repeatedly.)Laws and Nature: He’s the one giving credit to God for these things, not the evolutionist.Modernism and Liberal: Not really relevant to the subjectRationalist: Simply a person who relies on evidence and logic for their assertions, instead of faith. 47: What are We to Believe?That is up to the individual. Evolution provides evidence. It doesn’t have any direct comment on anything outside of that evidence. 48-50:A bunch of rhetoric and reiterations. 49 was just a wrap-up of the rest of the paper, 48 and 50 are just tactics for keeping people in line with Christianity. Not particularly relevant to this conversation. Appendix: Beating the Piltdown Man horse to death. I didn’t read the next article, as it is even older and appears to be fairly rhetorical. Yes I went through all of this very quickly and not in great detail. I am not interested in writing a book. But I will happily zoom in on specific subjects contained herein (but not every one please. That could take years!) Feel free to mention any specifics to focus our discussion :)