Please, no transition species arguments.
If someone’s taking pictures of me at 1 frame/10 seconds, what are the chances you’ll get me blinking?
Preaching to the choir comes to mind here.
I mean your looking for a fight right? You’re not about to start in on the pro-creationist side are you? I mean if not, then at least give the poor blighters an argument to tear into (paw into, whatever).
Many people just find it hard to believe that the complexity of life that we see around us could arise due to random events. I think that is the crux of why most people who do not accept the fact of evolution by natural selection are comfortable with their religious interpretation of the creation of life.
But it’s unclear to me what the actual debate here is…
I’m a firm Darwinian myself, but if you’re looking for arguments to use against Darwinism, you have to try to underpin one of the two tenets of the theory:
- Random mutations - you can try and prove that the rate of Beneficial Random Mutations is far to low to allow for the diversity of life as we know in, achieved in the time frame we have for the existence of Earth.
- Natural Selection: You can argue the same here - that the expected rate of “takeover” of an ecological niche by beneficially affected mutants is just too low to support the diversity of life…
Personally, I think most (non-religious) opponents of Darwinism just don’t realize just how much 2 or 3 billion years of time IS to accumulate tiny changes over.
Of cousre, you can also try to overthrow the assumption that the only way to transmit change to a descendant is genetic… maybe you want to argue that Lamarck was right after all (I mean, Lamarckian progress DOES seem natural to us in a societal sense - we learn our lessons and we teach them to our children. One could argue that animals that have been in special situations may, possibly, teach their offspring how to deal with that situation. If that situation becomes the norm within two or three generations… Lamarckism just might work in a “punctuated equilibrium” model world)
OK - that’s the best I can do as devil’s advocate - have into my ideas… 
Dani
The evidence is emerging that in some circumstances change is Lamarckian rather than Darwinian.
Specifically, there is a “barrier” surrounding reproductive tissues, so that changes acquired in one lifetime are not passed on to offspring.
The sort of changes under consideration are immunities and resistance to diseases & viruses.
However there is empirical evidence that some immunities and resistances acquired in one lifetime are passed on to offspring, as per Lamarck. The “barrier” is permeable, contrary to Darwin.
My boss doesn’t accept evolution, but he isn’t a creationist; he’s not even religious at all.
We’ve had many an interesting discussion about it; none of his arguments* hold water, but that doesn’t make a difference because he holds his views with incredible tenacity.
*[sub]Him: How could something as ridiculous as the giraffe have evolved - it’s clearly very badly suited to survival with that long neck.
Me: If giraffes were not viable, we simply wouldn’t have any giraffes.
Him: OK, so if a long neck is such a good idea, why doesn’t every animal on the planet have one?
Me: Because it is only a good adaptation in a limited context; for a shark to have a long neck would be a distinct disadvantage - a shark needs a compact, streamlined body with big teeth at the front.
Him: So why don’t giraffes have compact, streamlined bodies with big teeth at the front?
Me: Well, that sort of approach works well for lions, in the same kind of environment as the giraffes - there isn’t a single solution to the problem of survival in a given habitat, and the way in which a species can adapt to the environment is somewhat limited by legacy.
Him: Well, if that’s your argument, why don’t lions have long necks?
Me: <bangs head against wall>
The problem isn’t that he couldn’t grasp it, if he wanted to; he’s just one of those people who, rather than listening to someone, uses the time when the other person is speaking to formulate his next statement.[/sub]
Darwin did not propose evolution, he proposed a means of evolution. Evidence for evolution exists outside of Darwin’s theory. The gradual change over time of species through the geological column was observed and models were proposed prior to Darwin proposing his natural selection and random variation theory. Falsifying Darwin does not disprove evolution, only one model of how that evolution occurred.
It is like the current debate over gravity, is it made of waves or particles. No matter which way of the three possible ways it can go, gravity itself will not be falsified.
Playing Devil’s Advocate, there’s the argument of irreducable complexity, which if I understand properly is that there are complex things in nature which have no useful simpler forms that they could have evolved from. If they are not useful, then they shouldn’t have been naturally selected. And I guess they are so complex that a random mutation creating them complete is so incredibly unlikely that it is all but impossible.
My feeling is that just because a person can’t imagine a useful simpler form, that doesn’t mean nature didn’t come up with it.
This argument demonstrates the lack of human imagination, not a flaw in evolutionary theory.
Dawkin’s “Climbing Mount Improbable” is a fine example of how human imagination and software modelling can find useful simpler forms. Even forms that don’t perform the same tasks as later mutations do.
The real problem is that if you want to overturn Darwin’s theory of evolution thru natural selection, you need to come up with something better. If you’re argument is simply that “God did it”, then there isn’t any debate. Darwin probably got some things wrong. No scientific theory is perfect. But it has withstood rigorous scientific scrutiny for 150 yrs, and we have nothing better to use in its stead.
If you can read French, this book is a great pop science introduction to many of the theories of how life evolved on Earth. I don’t think there is an English version unfortunately.
Badly trying to translate, it makes the following points:
Darwinism - if it was true, monkeys in zoos would have become humans
Lamarckism - If people in problematic situations became more intelligent through dint of having to try and solve them, prisons would be bursting with geniuses
Superpredation - this would mean that sharks, because they eat all the other fish and have no predators, should be driving cars by now and watching television
I haven’t got to the end of the book yet (the plot is that this scientist was murdered because he found the true answer to “Where do we come from?”) but right now it’s delving into de-evolution: men becoming monkeys again.
I found it interesting to learn though that dolphins used to be amphibious - even land-dwelling - but chose to go back to the sea, and lost their back legs.
Silly nitpick (for which I apologise in advance), but ‘chose’ is probably not the best word in this context; it’s probably more likely to be the case that the amphibious ancestors of the dolphin which happened to have mutations favourable to more fully water-dweling lives, were able to better exploit resources such as marine foods, or were better able to escape predation, and survived to reproduce, while their less-fortunate cousins simply didn’t.
This deserves reinforcing. So many people who claim they “oppose Darwin” have no idea what exactly it is they are opposing. Someone who argues that no species has ever changed or appeared over time and that it is not possible simply has issues with reality, not Darwin, and need to spend time with someone who specializes in breeding a certain species. You can also read Cecil’s great classic column on the development of the bulldog, which I’m too pressed for time to dig up a link to right now.
You can take a common stock of a species, and by carefully selecting which ones get to breed and which don’t, you can create a great variety of breeds.
Which brings us to the finches that Darwin found on the Galapogos Archipeligo. To Darwin it was clear that although each island had its own distinct species of finch, it was quite clear from a number of shared characteristics that they must have descended from some common stock, almost as if each island had its own finch breeder that selected for certain traits (beak size and shape, etc.).
It occured to him that if distinct breeds spent a great deal of time in isolation from each other, they might develop separately to the point where they could no longer productively interbreed, and you would have two different species on your hands. None of it, by the way, had to do with genetics, which was being studies by Darwin’s contemporary, Mendel.
Not one to simply go with his first instincts, Darwin tested whether or not he had a solid basis for his understanding of breeding selection that led to his perieved analogy. The first, nearly unreadable portion of “On the Origin of Species” goes into excrutiating detail about time spent breeding pigeons.
As to the finches, the question simply remained, “Who or what was doing the breeding/selecting?” He realized that each variety of finch was uniquely suited to survive on its particular island, having the right type of beak to eat the fruit or drink from the flowers there, for example. He realized that those with less suitable apparatus or other ecosystem-specific means of survival would be less likely to live long enough to have offspring, and would select themselves right out of existence naturally, no breeder necessary.
The main criticism of Darwin in his time was not essentially religious. Even churchmen (who were not then the literal-interpretation fundies that we must deal with today) agreed it was emininently plausible, were it not for the fact that the only world timeline widely known was the one that said the earth was not even 6000 years old, which even Darwin had to admit was not enough time for his natural selection mechanism to create the variety of life we see in the world today.
It was only when geologists soon discovered how to date rocks and found many of them were millions and even billions of years old did the earth suddenly acquire an age that lent itself to natural selection as the mechanism for evolution of species. However, I never see the anti-Darwinists attacking the geologists, which would really be the key to the whole thing.
Again, if you believe and wish to demonstrate that species can not evolve into other species or even change over time, your issue is not with Darwin, but with the fossil record.
You must prove beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that giant insects have never actually been found in amber, that dinosaur remains, particularly those of the archaeopteryx, are all plaster fakes created by participants in a vast conspiracy stretching back over two centuries, and that the wide variety seen at last weekend’s Wesminster Kennel Club Dog Show was the result of clever sock puppets and mass hypnosis.
In short, you must reveal yourself for the frothing loon you know deep down you are.
I wish to add I meant that as a generic “you”, not directly aimed at Who Stole My Name?
The arguments that I have seen stem from a complete lack of understanding of the concept of evolution.
ie we are the "most evolved" species on the planet therefore we are the ultimate goal of all evolution. We evolved from the great apes.
We are the not the “most evolved”. We simply developed an intelligence that allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet. The only ultimate goal of evolution is survival. We did not evolve from modern apes. We have a common ancestor as we have with modern lizards only much further back.
This point cannot be stressed enough. “Progress” does not equal evolution and vice versa.
My only nitpick:
“…us to become the dominant species on the planet.” That’s debatable, especially if we’re equating sheer biomass with reproductive success.
I wouldn’t even say that the goal of evolution is survival. Yes, survival is a result of evolution. Just like 4 is a result of 2 + 2. Equaling 4 is not the goal of 2 + 2. Since 95% of all evolved lifeforms that have, and do, existed on this planet are extinct evolution seems to be poor mechanism to achieve the “goal” of survival.
Er, what? How does that follow? There is no set pre-ordained path of evolution that all creatures head towards.
Can I ask what we’re all doing here? Everyone so far agrees with the premise of evolution. The OP wanted arguments from the creationist/ID community which is like looking for hen’s teeth in this forum. I mean reading all the posts agreeing with each other is nice but bland as all hell.
I’m getting a mental picture of a sleek dolphin with legs walking around marshy areas. But seriously, of course you know that dolphins are mammals, right? And mammals all evolved from puny little creatures cowering out of the way of the last dinosaurs?
What I find hard to believe is how a creationist, given what we know about genetics and variation and vast amounts of time, can think that evolution might not happen. I mean, you don’t need a fossil record or anything, just given our genetic variation and inheritance, there’s no way that accumulated changes could be prevented!