Need some help refuting this creation argument...

[DaveSumm]

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.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

TalkOrigins has the answer: http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB940_1.html

Almost every creationist argument is covered here: http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

[LastPoet]

That is not a scientific paper!

Not even close, it lacks any rigor needed for a scientific paper, in whole is a drivel from an indoctrinated mind or someone that has to gain at the expense of ignorance. This is a common argument from creationists, probabilities. I have heard that the probability of we existing is 10^500, 10^300, etc, they never establish the universe where they apply those probabilities. The probablit of we existing is 1, we exist! Evolution far explaines how we do, without hocus-pocus.

[pocaracas]

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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.

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The numbers are sound.... if the whole mutation from single cell organism to 200 celled organism occurs in one go.
Evolution always claims that mutations happen over time.... lots and lots of time, lots and lots of generations.
One "positive" mutation gives rise to a new species which spreads out and generates a lot of individuals.
A new "positive" mutation in an individual of this species then creates a new species which should multiply in numbers far better than the previous species.
And so on and so forth...
The odds should be taken one at a time, instead of all at the same time.
So they don't multiply, they get compounded (as in a series of conditioned probabilities) which makes the math even more complicated.... but probably gives nicer odds for each of the thousands of species on Earth.

[Minimalist]

Tell him to look up "Henry Morris Ph. D." on wiki (His "PH. D. is in hydraulic engineering)

He's just some jesus freak fuckhead like all the rest of the creation institute. Your friend's father may as well listen to the fucking pope.

[downbeatplumb]

And don't forget that it is not one animal at a time that carries mutations but the whole of the breeding line allowing for many different genetic changes simultaneously.
There are for example 6 billion non-identical humans at the moment.

[Darkstar]

And don't forget that it is not one animal at a time that carries mutations but the whole of the breeding line allowing for many different genetic changes simultaneously.
There are for example 6 billion non-identical humans at the moment.

And that's just the humans:

At any time, it is estimated that there are some 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive.

http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/b...bugnos.htm

[DaveSumm]

Blown away by the rapid responses, thank you so much.

@teaearlgreyhot: I'd been searching for a specific refutation like that, so thanks for that link.

Essentially, I knew that the key was in the multitude of organisms across the globe all with the opportunity to mutate/reproduce, but then it sounds like he's attempting to address this in this paragraph:

The evolutionist might react by saying that even though any one such mutating organism might not be successful, surely some around the world would be, especially in the 10 billion years (or 1018 seconds) of assumed earth history. Therefore, let us imagine that every one of the earth's 1014 square feet of surface harbors a billion (i.e., 109) mutating systems and that each mutation requires one-half second (actually it would take far more time than this). Each system can thus go through its 200 mutations in 100 seconds and then, if it is unsuccessful, start over for a new try. In 1018 seconds, there can, therefore, be 1018/102, or 1016, trials by each mutating system. Multiplying all these numbers together, there would be a total possible number of attempts to develop a 200-component system equal to 1014 (109) (1016), or 1039 attempts. Since the probability against the success of any one of them is 1060, it is obvious that the probability that just one of these 1039 attempts might be successful is only one out of 1060/1039, or 1021.

.....but he uses such a bizarre number of estimates (100 seconds? Half a second? A billion? They're so erratic I don't know where to start...) that I can't quite wade through it far enough to actually pinpoint where this all goes wrong. If it was ever right, which I doubt.

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....that quote is made difficult to follow by the fact that the "to the power" signs haven't copied, sorry. I didn't think that the Earth was 1014 sq ft.

[downbeatplumb]

But what he is missing is evolution and sex, until sex came along evolution was fairly slow, but then sex came and the pace exploded. The mixing of two different DNA sets and the option to choose mates changed the game.

These little number ploys have been tried before and are laughable.

[Darkstar]

.......misread the post, nvm...