Creationist Delusions

Creationists have a well thumbed list of what they perceive to be arguments against evolution.  These arguments have been frequently debunked and do little to enhance their case for a young Earth.  Rather, they demonstrate the unscientific nature of creationism. 

Below are some of these arguments which were posted on the NAiG Message Board.  The responses, by Paul Poland, are in blue text.

ABIOGENESIS

That slow process by which living organisms were spontaneously generated from non-living matter. This scientific fact should not be confused with the old discredited myth of spontaneous generation by which it was once foolishly believed that living organisms arose from non-living matter. (see Law of Biogenesis).

Too bad that in reality, no sane or rational person believes that something as complex as a bacterium "spontaneously generated" - that is a standard creationut delusion. The first self-replicators wouldn't even be that complex.  The discredited idea of spontaneous generation was mice from oily rags or bacteria from hay infusion. As this has been known to be wrong for about 100+ years, whine #1 is debunked.

A.C.L.U.

An organization that zealously protects our American civil liberties by preventing students in public schools from considering scientific evidence that is either consistent with creation or critical of evolution.

Nope - they keep religion out of science class. If there were evidence for creationism/Magical Skymanism (other than personal incredulity, wishful thinking, Misinformation Theory and Improbability "Arguments") it would be science.

BIG BANG

The mechanism, or at least the noise, by which all matter and energy came into existence billions of years ago.

And has nothing to do with the validity of the Theory of Evolution (ToE). Unless, of course, one is dull-witted enough to subscribe to the creationuts' Cartoon Theory of Evolution (where everything they don't understand or that threatens their "understanding" of reality is grouped).

BIOLOGY
 
The branch of the exact sciences which is exclusively concerned with the evolution of living organisms by means of random mutations and natural selection.

Nope - biology is just the study of living things. Evolution is a mechanism by which new varieties of critters come into being via cumulative selection.

DROSOPHILA
 
The "guinea pig" of the evolutionist to which we all owe a debt of gratitude for our understanding of the role of mutations in evolution. Trillions of generations of these rapidly breeding little flies have had their wings crumpled and their eyes damaged by strong mutagenic agents to provide us with a genetic insight into how man evolved from the prehominid brutes in a few thousand generations.

The experiments were done to work out genetic cascades and what genes do what - they were not meant to study evolution! Only a complete and utter buffoon would expect the flies to become anything else after just a few decades.  In fact, if they did, that would be evidence against evolution - but it requires someone who actually knows what evolution is to know that (which explains why you missed it).

EVOLUTION

A truly perfect scientific theory which explains in detail how everything in the universe came into being -- slowly.

STANDARD CREATIONUT DELUSION #1!  Evolution explains how living things change over time - it does not (nor has it ever) included cosmogeny (origin of the universe), nucleogenesis (origin of atoms heavier than hydrogen), astrophysics or planetology (origin of galaxies,  solar systems or planets).

The theory of evolution is so perfect and flexible in its ability to explain virtually all observable phenomena or opinions that it would be impossible to even conceive of an experiment capable of disproving it. (see Law).

Rabbit fossils in the PreCambrian would do it. So would humans having a radically different genetic code than other primates.  Plus many, many others. But it would require actually knowing what evolution is to know that.

GEOLOGIC COLUMN

A precise hierarchy of fossilized animals and plants of known age found in successive layers of stratified rock with the simplest and oldest at the bottom and the most highly evolved, i.e., most recent, at the top.

Nope - the youngest are found at the top. As per Steno about 100 years before Darwin.

Uninterrupted columns of this type may be found in any book of geology, paleontology or evolution. Bits and pieces of the column may even be found in the stratified rocks of the earth, but since these layers are often out of correct order and very incomplete, one should study the geologic column in books, not nature.

Nope - they are usually found in the correct order. And the entire series does exist in 26 locations around the world.  Only a complete boob would demand that the entire column be intact everywhere.

HOPEFUL MONSTER THEORY

A concept first introduced out of necessity by the geneticist, Richard Goldschmidt, which states that evolution occurs by sudden and large changes in the offspring of a species resulting in radically different but well adapted organisms, i.e. "hopeful monsters." After being widely discredited for many years this idea is being reintroduced, out of necessity, as a serious theory. The great leaps forward implicit in this theory entirely account for the absence of the "missing links." (See Punctuated Equilibrium)

Only a buffoon would say something that stupid.  Oh, wait - I forgot who I was talking to.

Punc Eq merely states that the rate of change is variable - forms can remain stable for long periods of time (stasis) with occasional bursts of rapid speciation ("rapid" in the geological sense of thousands to tens of thousands of years) - as has been observed in evolving bacterial populations and computer simulations. Yet another creationut delusion down the tubes.

INDEX FOSSILS

Fossils of animals whose ages are precisely known from the age of the rocks in which they are found, thus, serving as a means for accurately dating the rocks in which they are found as well as the age of any other fossils that may be contained therein.

We use radiometrics to determine absolute age. The geologic periods are defined by what fossils are in them - Cambrian fossils are of different critters than Ordovician, which are different than Silurian, etc. Hence, if a mollusc lived only during the Silurian period and a rock is littered with its shells, it is from the Silurian period. I know it takes an IQ above room temperature in degrees Celsius to figure that out, but do try to keep up.

LAW

In science, a statement of fact about a sequence or phenomenon that has been invariably observed to occur under known conditions such as, for example, the theory of evolution. (see Evolution).

A law in science is an explanation of a regularity in nature; it is not a "grown up hypothesis". Only a creationut would be slow witted enough to believe otherwise.

LAW OF BIOGENESIS

Simply states the obvious...that all life comes from pre-existing life. This law, which was confirmed by Redi and Pasteur, permanently laid to rest the ludicrous idea of the ignorant ancients that living organisms could spring from inanimate matter. It should be emphasized that this law in no way precludes the slow origin of living organisms from inanimate matter through the process of evolution - after all, we are here, aren't we? (see Abiogenesis).

Too bad that the first self-replicators would not have been as complex as bacteria. And that no abiogenetic theory has any influence on the validity of the ToE (since the ToE presupposes the existence of life, how that life first arose is of no consequence to the ToE's validity. Once life arose, it evolved - changed over time).

LIFE

The only term in this dictionary that defies definition since it has been said that "the division of matter into living and nonliving is perhaps an arbitrary one. It is a convenient method for distinguishing, for instance, a man from a rock." (quoted verbatim from The Origins of Life, by Cyril Ponnamperuma, 1962, H. P. Dutton, New York, p. 36).

Are viruses "life" or not?

MICROSPHERES

Primitive cells which have been artificially synthesized from simple laboratory reagents. As the name implies, the principal similarity between microspheres and living cells is that both are small and sort of round.

And form spontaneously (self-organize) via the laws of physics.

MISSING LINKS

An inconceivably vast assemblage of plants and animals which are intermediate in their evolutionary development between all of the discrete kinds of plants and animals one sees either alive or in the fossil record. Unfortunately as the name implies they are missing.

Only if one closes one's eyes. And ignores the fact that fossilization is rare. And recovery of fossils is rare. And speciation generally happens in small populations in small areas. And ignores molecular biology, anatomy, physiology, enzymology ....

MUTATIONS

A change in the genetic material (DNA) of the cell induced by hazardous chemicals or radiation which in addition to killing or maiming organisms will, given enough time and enough mutations, inexorably lead some organisms on to an ever more successful and adaptive life.

Nope - a mutation is any change in the DNA. And not all of them are created by hazardous means - DNA polymerase does make errors naturally. Some variants will be better than others at living long enough to reproduce. After enough generations, that variant is the only one left.

NATURAL SELECTION

That miraculous process by which incredibly complex and useful structures, such as the eye or brain, are culled out from a vast array of random and purposeless mutations.

Nature keeps the variants that work (that is, have a purpose - i.e. keeping the critter alive) and discards what does not. End result - the appearance of design.  Too bad that the mechanisms of evolution have been observed to generate complex things.

In the distant past this marvelous natural artificer has produced the whole scope of existence from molecules to man but today it appears to be limiting its activities to such mundane matters as controlling the relative numbers of white and black moths in England.

Nope - bacteria still use it to become resistant to our drugs and treatments. Or to gain the ability to digest new substrates. Insects use it to become resistant to insecticides, plants use it to become resistant to herbicides. Just how much frecking change do you expect in just a few hundred years anyway?

NEO-DARWINIAN EVOLUTION

An embellishment of the old Darwinian theory of evolution, it states that random changes (mutations) in the genome of an organism will be selected for, and thus contribute to the evolution of the new species, only if they ultimately lead to a greater number of offspring. Thus, an ever-increasing rate of reproduction entirely accounts for the evolution from bacteria to man.

Where did you ever dig up this tripe? Gains in genomic information (which can be done by many different mechanisms) explains the evolution from bacteria to man.

ONTOGENY RECAPITULATES PHYLOGENY

A law first discovered by Ernst Haeckel which if pronounced correctly and with conviction, impresses laymen and students of science in the elementary grades. Simply stated, and thus less convincingly, it means that the embryos of all animals bother to provide a historical review of many stages of their evolution during their embryological development. Although this type of reminiscing is touching and is taught in almost every general science and biology text book, it is no longer accepted by scientists or even evolutionists.

It was shown to be wrong about 5 years after Haeckel proposed it.  His idea was that the embryos go through the adult stage of earlier forms. Too bad that embryos actually do resemble each other early on - humans have pharyngeal arches and tails, for example.

PHYLOGENETIC TREE

A tree that grows mainly in textbooks of biology and which has a variety of both contemporary and fossil animals perched on the tips of its branches. This tree clearly shows how all of these animals branched off from common ancestors a long time ago. For some reason the common ancestors are never shown sitting in the crotches of the tree. Plants presumably grow on different trees which are
rather rare.

Too bad that common ancestors are known for some groups.

PILTDOWN MAN

Once known by all true scholars of human evolution to be an ancient ancestor of man. This true "ape man" had the jaw of a modern ape and the skull of a modern man. Today this ape-man is not so well known among true scholars of evolution.

Revealed by scientists to be a hoax decades ago, twit!  It was never fully accepted even back then because it didn't quite fit with the rest of the fossils coming out of Africa.

PROOF

The assimilation of data in such a way that the desired conclusion seems to be the most plausible hypothesis.

Only if one is a creationut. Real science deals with evidence, not proof, for no hypotheses can be shown with 100% certainty to be correct (we may learn something tomorrow that shows an hypothesis is wrong).

PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM

An ad hoc hypothesis or alibi that claims the reason there are no known transitional forms in the fossil record is because evolutionary changes occur so quickly and the reason we can't see evolutionary changes in the laboratory is because they occur so slowly. (see Hopeful Monster Theory).

Firstly, you simpering twit, there are known transitional forms.  Secondly, "quickly" on a geological timescale is thousands to tens of thousands of years.  Thirdly, you cockalorum, the Hopeful Monster Theory was "new species in one generation"; Punc Eq is not, nor has it ever been, the Hopeful Monster theory anywhere but in creationuts' imaginations.

RADIOCARBON DATING

A remarkably precise method of actually measuring the age of any carbon-containing sample.

Nope - there are things for which carbon dating is unsuitable.

Except for certain spurious (young) dates,

Such as those that exist purely in the creationuts' imaginations.

radiocarbon, like other methods involving the decay of radionuclides will, given several absolutely safe assumptions, invariably indicate a ripe old age for any specimen consistent with a slow process of evolution.

Nope - based on observations of reality. Radiometrics could've destroyed the ToE by actually showing the Earth to be just 6000 years old - but it didn't.  All the creationuts can do is whine about it.

SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

One of the most fundamental laws of science which essentially states that nothing can increase in order, complexity, or information

Bullship!! The 2nd Law is concerned with heat transfer - the real definition says absolutely nothing about order, complexity, or information. Those are creationut add-ons. If becoming more complex or orderly enables energy to be more evenly distributed, then that is permitted by the 2nd Law.

but rather everything form the universe to the one-horse shay will in time fall apart (not assemble). We may be sure, however, that the mind-boggling increase in order, complexity and information accomplished by the evolution of chemicals to man in no way violates this law or it wouldn't have happened.

That's because the real 2nd Law does not forbid evolution - if it had, physicists about 100 years ago would've noticed and said something.

SELECTIVE PRESSURE

That natural and highly selective pressure that actually forces particularly useful structures such as brains, eyes, legs, wings and long necks on giraffes to evolve by random mutations.

Only if one is a Lamarkian or a complete and utter buffoon. If a new variation is useful, that variation will become more common (i.e., slightly longer necks, more brain cells, etc). There is no direction in evolution - just demographics.

Unnecessary structures such as eyelids on your navel fail to evolve by chance because there is no selective pressure for this.

Only if one is silly enough to believe there is a single gene to create eyelids and such.

SPECULATION

The single most powerful tool in the hands of the evolutionists.

Too bad that they use speculation to create hypotheses that can be tested - much unlike the glorification of ignorance known as creationism/Magical Skymanism.

TIME

That miracle ingredient which in sufficient quantity can give scientific credibility to any hypothesis no matter how improbable.

Too bad that we have lots of time available, and the creationut improbability calculations are off by at least 50 to 100 orders of magnitude, and that real evolution works by cumulative selection and not the pathetic one-shot routine that creationuts like to use.

It is a well- known axiom of science for example, that given enough time virtually anything is possible - indeed you might even say it has to happen.

Nope - impossible things will not happen, even if given infinite time. Too bad that evolution has very high probability.

VESTIGIAL ORGANS

Organs or other body parts, left over from evolutionary ancestors, which are no longer used or needed by an organism that has become more highly evolved by abandoning organs and getting simpler. Seventy years ago man had nearly one hundred vestigial organs such as the parathyroid, tonsils, coccyx, etc., but today he has very few vestigial organs because a good use has been discovered for most of these organs.

"Vestigial" just means less developed than the same part in either closely related critters or earlier in development; lack of function is not a determining criteria (although creationuts like to posture as if it were the only one). Even scientists before Darwin was born could identify vestigial organs.