Debate: Creationism vs. Evolutionism
Side: evolutionism

Part II:Right off the bat there’s a huge problem with this article: Its 86 years out-of-date. Unlike religion, science if a self-correcting and dynamic school of thought that changes in accordance with the evidence. In the time since this was written, we have gained considerable knowledge of the role of DNA, demonstrated and observed abiogenic formation of organic molecules, revised our “age of Earth” estimates from 200 million years to over 4.5 billion, discovered continental drift and much, much more. Many of his points are rendered obsolete by more recent and accurate observations.That being said, I undertook the challenge of focusing my attacks primarily on the shear logic and validity of his points as pure arguments regardless of current knowledge. This was more difficult, but even here I found many of his points to be lacking. Because the new information is important I will reference it, but only briefly, in terms of theories or key words, and put those points in (parenthesis). I will spend a little more time with the more logic-based arguments, although everything will be relatively brief and concise. Feel free to request elaboration and citation (I will not be providing links at this time, but ask for any that you want when you respond).Preamble to Part 1:“Any scientific theory or hypothesis must be proved first possible, then probable, then certain. To be a possible theory, it must be reconcilable with many facts; to be a probable theory, it must be reconcilable with many more; to be a certain and proven theory, it must be reconcilable with all the facts.”Before his first point he has already displayed a misunderstanding of what a scientific theory is. All theories are probable; none are meant to be facts or laws. They describe why facts and laws are the way they are, and are as strong as the supporting evidence. A theory can be disproved, to be sure. But proving it requires absolute knowledge of everything, and we don’t have that, so the work horse of the theory is the evidence. 1. Population of the World: (The population of the world hit 3 billion in 1960, then 6 billion right around 2000. This 40-year doubling time is about 1/4 as long as his estimate suggests it should be.)Population growth rates, and therefore doubling time, are reliant on multiple factors: carrying capacity, infant mortality and life expectancy being the 3 big ones. CC and LE were much lower in prehistoric times, while IM was much higher. These factors put us at subsistence level, massively hampering our growth rate. The development of agriculture helped raise CC massively, and the onset of civilization changed IM and LE in our favor. The idea that a specific group would line up with overall average isn’t too surprising since the 3 factors were roughly congruent throughout recorded history until the last century or two. However the math of prehistoric man would be quite different, (just as the math for the last century is also very different from the preceding 8000 or so years.) 2. Unity of LanguagesSome languages are tonal some are not. Some have completely different sentence structures than most others. Some rely heavily on sounds that are completely absent in others. On average, it takes 7-10 years for a person to master a language. This is unity? More directly to his point, languages and dialects within languages “evolve” at different rates for in different locations and for a wide variety of reasons, completely nullifying his constant rate conjecture. Yes, there was probably a common language, but not any time recently.3 & 4: Religion and Place of the Origin of ManBoth of these simply confirm a common origin of man. Evolution doesn’t refute that, in fact, it relies on that. He made the same point with languages, but at lest attempted to show how they couldn’t be so “unified” in such a long period of time. Here he doesn’t even try, so these points are irrelevant to his case and do nothing to dispute evolution.5. CivilizationCivilization developed independently of the Fertile Crescent in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and China, and nomads were almost everywhere else. There was more than one center of civilization. Besides, nothing about evolution requires that there were many, although that is how it played out by circumstance. Again he’s making the rather odd assumption that evolutionists don’t believe in common ancestry, but common ancestry is at the heart of evolution. 6. Mendellian Inheritance LawsThe pea plants in Mendel’s experiments didn’t change species, they simply expressed different alleles, and those varieties already existed in nature. He was doing artificial selection that helped him focus specific phenotypes into specific groups, which is pretty similar to why humans have different races but are all the same species. The idea that all of our recessive genes would kick in simultaneously and cause us to revert to a previous species demonstrates a big misunderstanding of Mendel’s experiment (and has since been proven to be impossible by genetics. We have also learned that some of the major evolutionary forces ((gene flow, genetic drift, mutation, random mating)) can extinguish some recessive genes, but this wasn’t known or widely believed by evolutionists in Rev. Williams’ time.)7. BiometryTruth is, I don’t know enough about biostatistics to properly refute this or analyze the validity of it. So I’ll let this one stand. Onward8. No New Species Now(Current estimate of age of life is about 3.8 billion years, not 60 million, massively altering calculations.)Much like some of the previous arguments, his obsession with averages totally ignores reality. Different lines evolve in different amounts of time, (and different periods and geographical locales foster different rates of evolution) so his average and doubling times are useless in this application. Also the idea that not a single new species has been named is not supported. We are constantly finding new species of plants, animal and fungus, and this has always been the case. Although I grant that very few of these are brand new organisms, his premise is based on a huge fallacy. And even by his time there were a few recorded cases of speciation. (And many more since then.)9. There is no 9.10. Age of the Earth(Geology couldn’t really do anything right until the Continental Drift Theory was incorporated. Almost every single theory he mentions, the ones he refutes and the ones he supports have all been proven wrong by modern geology. Same goes with the Sun’s age, which is supportable by modern astronomy.)Even if his numbers were correct, the assumption that because the amount of time it takes to form a river is less than age of the Earth points to a younger Earth is invalid. Surface features, especially rivers, change over time and even the geologists of his time knew this. 11. Geology and HistoryThis is a random collection of arguments. Some I have already responded to. As far as the others:Piltdown man: we know and admit that this was a hoax. Christians have also manufactured some hoaxes of their own. If it Piltdown the only option we had, this would be damning. But there were a few others in his time .(Pithecanthropus is now understood to be a population of homo erectus. Many more specimens of this population have been found. Likewise, many new specimens of Neanderthals and Homo heidelbergensis have been uncovered.)The number of remains for “missing link” species was automatically lowered by his presumption that most of them were extinct apes, thus relying on bias. (Plus, many, many new ones have been uncovered.)"In the year 1806, the French Institute enumerated not less than 80 geological theories which were hostile to the Scriptures; but not one of these theories is held today."Irrelevant. In science, progress is attained through airing out all possibilities and discarding the incorrect ones. Failures of the past speak nothing of the present. Unless of course, one doesn’t adapt one’s theories in the face of new information, like religion. Also, this comment was taken completely out of context, as it was said as a preface to an argument supporting uniformitarianism. “All the bacilli remain the same microscopic species, even those too microscopic to be seen or isolated.”If you can’t see it, you can’t know this. (We now can see them changing, both genetically and morphologically.)(There are plenty other archaeopteryx fossils now, as well as few other dino-bird transitionals. They have several skeletal features in common with birds, but also many that no birds have, but some dinosaurs do.)12. Geographical distribution(Continental drift.)13. God not Absent or InactiveIt is funny how, after extolling that God is all-powerful, he seems to imply that God is not capable of using evolution as a process. Later, he confuses scientific law with the more colloquial usage of the word. The remainder of this section translates as “Life is complex and impressive; therefore God.” Which is only an answer to someone who is too lazy to investigate.14. Chance or Design?More of the same. (The eye argument is rendered useless in the face of the fact that many creatures get by just fine and dandy without eyes that are as complex as ours. Several engineering companies use evolutionary theory in computer programs to design, “by chance”, structures and systems that are more efficient than those that human designers have made. Just like in nature, they quickly discard the poor ones and watch the remaining ones improve gradually over generations, but with computer programs that we now have, we can sort through billions of years of evolution in a few days.)15. “Evolution Atheistic”More of his “God of the Gaps” drivel. But more to the point: evolution defies strict literal interpretations of the Bible, but so do many Christians. Many theologians have pointed out that many sections of the Bible, especially the OT, were obvious parables meant to give a description of somewhat abstract concepts. Further, many were borrowed from pre-existing beliefs. But aside from contradicting the Bible, evolution says absolutely nothing about God. All of naturalistic science says “no comment” when God comes up. If some Christians and atheists decide that evolution puts God out of the picture, than they are creating a false dichotomy that evolution itself is not related to. 16. Brute Descent ImpossibleThe brain growth math, once again ignores the fact that different species evolve at different rates. Numerous factors dictate the speed and nature of the evolutionary process, and each species responds to these factors in unique ways. 17. Eight Impassable GulfsActually, he lists 9. This guy really doesn’t do well with the number 9 apparently. (1: It has been proven repeatedly that organic molecules can be formed in numerous different ways an are abundant in space. Regardless, this isn’t evolution, its abiogenesis.)(2-8: All documented to some extent or the other in the fossil record.) (We know now that there was MUCH more time available to pass these gulfs than he presumes.)9: Existence of “soul” never proven.18: Ancestral Monkeys and Apes(Common ancestor now known.)It is very clear in this passage that the author finds the idea of man being a primate to be highly unpleasant, and he makes no attempt to cover up his bias. But just because you don’t like what science is telling you, you don’t just toss it out the window. If a doctor tells you that you have an incurable disease, you wouldn’t like that either, but that dislike doesn’t make it untrue. He specifically asks “where is the comfort or gain?” But evolution is not about comfort, and the gain is in the attainment of learning, just like all science. As far as why monkeys and their ilk are not currently becoming human, we shouldn’t expect them to. Each line ended up on its own path, with separate environmental factors and sets of DNA, and the sum total of adaptations aren’t expected to create the same result. It is like asking, “why haven’t all cats become tigers?” But a tiger wouldn’t do as well in a lion’s environment as it does in its own home, and has accrued numerous personal adaptations from which the others build. (We now know how this works genetically), but this was shown in the morphological changes already observed in his time.Then he goes on to cherry-pick some external differences and completely ignores that we share numerous traits with primates that are only found in primates. Yes there are differences, but that’s like saying that because my cousin is a short red-head and I am a tall blonde, we can’t be related, even though most people who see us together see the familial resemblance with ease. 19: Staggering speculation.Well religion has some pretty staggering speculations itself. But, I find it funny that the things he’s looking for (like a plant cross-breeding with an animal) are no less bizarre and speculative than what he’s fighting against, and show his apparent ignorance in what evolution actually is. He seems to have filled in the gaps in his research with far-fetched notions intended to point out how ludicrous he finds the concept to be, without realizing that the evolutionists do not support these notions anyway. This is common with creationists, but not exactly supportive of their points once one actually researches the premise. 20: SexSome of his information is actually correct, but he falls flat when he assumes that sexual reproduction occurred in one fell swoop, or that the animals just invented it. It happened in a process of refining, some of which was kept on by certain lines, others were altered and promoted within those lines, and still others failed and the line went extinct. Which is precisely what has been argued since Darwin’s day, our good Reverend simply willfully ignores this to justify his points of dispute. 21: Man hairless and tailless:(Phrenology was heavily disputed in his time, and has since been totally discredited.) Further, he seems to be totally ignorant of the fact that some lines are more prone to baldness than others, that some men do indeed have disgustingly hairy backs, and that apes in general have declining tails compared to arboreal monkeys. Also, even in his time there was the known phenomena of people occasionally being born with tails.