Need some help refuting this creation argument...

[Minimalist]

If someone thinks God doesn't exist, ok. That's a reasonable position to take.

All you have to do is produce evidence that your god exists. We'll wait - but in the meantime don't expect us to blindly accept the lunacy to which you have obviously succumbed.


On a personal note, chanting "hare krishna" over and over is not "evidence."

[Darkstar]

I just want to add an option for you to think about: There is lots of stuff you don't know.

Yeah; same for you.

The idea that everything comes from nothing and then evolved from physics and chemistry is an interesting idea, but far from proven.

I believe you've made a mistake; those are multiple ideas. Evolution has been proven on a small scale many times, so I don't know why people keep saying that it is unproven. Organic matter has been created from inorganic matter, but said matter has not been brought to life. No one here is saying that, for sure, everything comes from nothing. There are other arguments for the beginning of the universe that don't involve god.

It's not the only reasonable idea around. At least humbly admit that.

Which one? Evolution is the only reasonable idea in its category. Abiogenesis probably is, but it hasn't yet been proven. As for the universe arising from nothing, I'm not claiming to be more than 50% sure about that, so yes there are other reasonable explanations, but they don't all invlove god (in fact, only one does).

You're welcome to argue all the creationist arguments, and you may be right about them. But if someone else is still persuaded by the other side, even after you've given all your best arguments, why are you disturbed?

Becuase ignorance is spreading... There is proof for evolution. Proof

[DaveSumm]

So my response is going to go something like this:

This is essentially a mathematical version of the old 'half an eye is useless' mantra. By adding in the condition that there must be 200 successive successful mutations, the numbers are stacked from the start. It ignores the gradual beneficial mutations that spread throughout a species and provide a backdrop for any further beneficial mutations. So because half an eye ISN'T useless, the numbers are BS.

And I've read a lot more about Chimp/Human ancestry, I think I've got that one nailed. I particularly like the ironic point that Chimps are actually harder to tie in through fossils than we are, so if anybody should be arguing that they're created separately and specially by God it's the Chimps.

[garbishcan]

do those evolution deniers believe in the stories of adam an eve?

[Darwinian]

do those evolution deniers believe in the stories of adam an eve?

Yes, pretty much as it's written!

[Aractus]

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.

Dave, I stopped reading after the first line ...

• The Mathematical Impossibility of Evolution
  According to the most-widely accepted theory of evolution today, the sole mechanism for producing evolution is that of random mutation combined with natural selection.

That's the neo-darwinist view of the "selfish gene", it's wrong and outdated. Evolution operates primarily in the real physical world, and not in DNA world. DNA is an adaptable mechanism which appears to be able to re-order itself with some degree of stability without "random chance" events required to trigger it. The most important thing to remember is that most DNA is "junk dna" and unused. All the organism needs to do is switch a protein that reads a new section of DNA, and the existing code becomes junk and the junk becomes what is used. It is this switching process that appears to make evolution at the pace that it happens possible, and not random-chance-mutations. But that said, the theory isn't done and closed.