Hello,
A friend of mine's father (lifelong atheist and believer in evolutionary theory) has been shown some stuff from a creationist relative and sadly has him swayed. There are two main points I want to dismantle here (I'm hopeful if I dissuade him early on that his capacity for reason will still function), the first of which is this article on the mathematics of mutation rates:
http://www.icr.org/article/493/
I've seen similar arguments around, but I'm no maths wizz so I'm struggling to pinpoint exactly where these numbers go wrong, so I was hoping someone could help me on this.
The second point is the familiar "where are all the man/monkey fossils" argument which I'm much more familiar with, and feel confident dealing with myself. If, however, anyone had any links or additional info obviously that would be helpful.
I was tempted to dismiss this (I don't even know this person particularly well) but I can't shake the feeling that a well put together email could completely change this guys retirement from open minded wonder at the universe as science reveals it.......or close minded crack pottery.
Thanks in advance for your responses.
A friend of mine's father (lifelong atheist and believer in evolutionary theory) has been shown some stuff from a creationist relative and sadly has him swayed. There are two main points I want to dismantle here (I'm hopeful if I dissuade him early on that his capacity for reason will still function), the first of which is this article on the mathematics of mutation rates:
http://www.icr.org/article/493/
I've seen similar arguments around, but I'm no maths wizz so I'm struggling to pinpoint exactly where these numbers go wrong, so I was hoping someone could help me on this.
The second point is the familiar "where are all the man/monkey fossils" argument which I'm much more familiar with, and feel confident dealing with myself. If, however, anyone had any links or additional info obviously that would be helpful.
I was tempted to dismiss this (I don't even know this person particularly well) but I can't shake the feeling that a well put together email could completely change this guys retirement from open minded wonder at the universe as science reveals it.......or close minded crack pottery.
Thanks in advance for your responses.