Argument against evolution
I was debating with one theist.. who said....
"At least 99.9% of mutations are harmful A 99.9% harmful mutation rate couldn't account for the evolutionary process mutations in the time
span evolutionists say that life has evolved for. If there is a 0.1%
chance of any given mutation being beneficial then time span would, be
more then Now, imagine what the chances are of a fish evolving into a
human being?
"At least 99.9% of mutations are harmful A 99.9% harmful mutation rate couldn't account for the evolutionary process mutations in the time
span evolutionists say that life has evolved for. If there is a 0.1%
chance of any given mutation being beneficial then time span would, be
more then Now, imagine what the chances are of a fish evolving into a
human being?
Never in even a trillion years. Mathematicians say that any odd greater than 1 in 1 million os mathematically insignificant."
.
Can someone help me to refute this?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Matt Coulthurst on -
"In fruit flies, one change in a gene called antennapedia results in a fly with legs on their head instead of antenna."
Who discovered this, and what did they THINK they were doing at the time? :)
(I jest)
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Permalink Reply by Matt Coulthurst on
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Thanks Adriana - an enlightening link.
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Permalink Reply by Sathish Thota on -
some theists are perfect example for refuting the "intelligent" design...
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Permalink Reply by Sathish Thota on
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I never knew there was creationism until I started discussing with theists after my gradutation... Hindus don't have any problem with evolution... but many christians and muslims believe only in creationism and the guy whom I'm debating is a muslim....
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Permalink Reply by Sathish Thota on
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here's the youtube link where I'm debating... I told him no way one can fill the gap of "9 billion years"... he came up with this shit...
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I995v4U6Afo
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Permalink Reply by Brian Stewart on -
This is an old argument: This was published in South Africa last week: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=234004959583¬es_tab=app...
Just scroll down to the article by Rogers on evolution. and here's the reply by four PhDs: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=464267073207
some comments from our skeptics page (www.skeptics.za.org) include: "Most of Rogers’ reply again erroneously conflates abiogenesis with evolution. The rest of it is a sidetracking accusation that the four UKZN biologists don’t know anything about chemistry – or their own subject. As for evolution not being falsifiable, that’s utter baloney: All Rogers needs to do is show us mammalian fossils interspersed among trilobites in an undisturbed geological stratum or sequence"
and my response (with assistance from some of my skeptic friends) published in the same daily:
"The argument that “the tenet’s of evolution have come under fire due to advances in science and now Darwinian evolution does not get past the first hurdle” is absurd and demands peer reviewed references instead of dated arguments by persons such as Sir Frederick Hoyle (refer for example to Hoyle’s Fallacy) and Ralph Muncaster, a well-known Christian, anti-evolution campaigner, neither of whom have any credibility whatsoever in the scientific community.
It would be helpful to know which specific “tenets of evolution” Rogers thinks have “come under fire” through “advances in science.” The fact that abiogenesis doesn’t fall within the ambit of evolutionary theory is conveniently ignored by Rogers; it is a problem of biophysics and biochemistry. In addition, there is no evidence to support a claim such as "As intelligent design gains credibility..." in which sphere of society is this credibility growing? Lack of sufficient evidence for evolution does not constitute sufficient evidence for the existence of god. Rogers’ argument to this effect is not only disingenuous but fundamentally flawed. As tenets of evolution, “descent with modification” and “natural selection” stand as firm today as they ever did – unless Rogers has some brand new information that has yet to permeate the biological sciences.
Hoyle’s (and similar) counters to abiogenesis are flawed because they incorrectly assume that all of the various components and mechanisms of a functioning cell must have come into existence at the same time in the same place, an ill-informed assumption of which cretinists and IDiots have yet to divest themselves.
Also there seems to be an idea among theists that if they simply disprove evolution then all atheists would suddenly have no room for being atheist as if there are only two options available: evolution or theism (and of course their particular brand of theism too); an argument posited by Rogers in his article, as well. There were atheists before evolution, and if evolution were to be proved wrong (extremely unlikely considering the enormous amount of evidence for it), there would be atheists after it.
The article by Rogers indeed requires faith as it lacks scientific rigour and fails dismally in logic. It is a pathetic attempt to discredit Darwin and more significantly atheism. "
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Permalink Reply by Sathish Thota on
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Thank you... never expected this kind of response on my first day of discussion....
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Permalink Reply by Eoganacht on -
Since most of our DNA is junk, I would say that only the small percentage that is used would be harmful if mutated.
Mathematicians say that any odd greater than 1 in 1 million os mathematically insignificant
Who says this? The chance that I will Lotto are less yet it still happens regularly enough.
Never in even a trillion years
A trillion is a very large number. I doubt that this person can comprehend the scale he is dealing with. Most people cannot.
I would ask for sourses and ask where he got his numbers from.
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Permalink Reply by Velogiraptor on -
As stated by others, the 99.9% figure was likely pulled from the Encyclopedia Rectum. Seeing that this is an infallible source of information that proactively deposits its contents into the minds of people who would otherwise lose an argument directly, we must assume it to be true.
That said, an occurrence rate of .1% would not be insignificant if applied to a planet where millions of mutations could be happening every day. Let's say that 1 million mutations happen every day, and that .1 percent are beneficial. That would mean that there are 1000 beneficial mutations every day. Also, I would wager that there are some chemicals that would be lethal in concentrations of .1% if I had to guess. Also not mathematically insignificant.
By making the statement that odds of 1 in 1 million are insignificant, your theist friend has demonstrated a poor understanding of math and probability. If I have a computer processor that is running at 3 gigahertz, that means that a chance of 1 in 1 million of an error in a particular logic gate would average out to about 3000 errors per second. I wouldn't call that insignificant. Now apply the same likelyhood to all the logic gates in the processor. The number of errors per second would be astronomical!
Probability without sample size / rate to provide context is just about useless.
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Permalink Reply by Matt Coulthurst on
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Well said.
"Encyclopedia Rectum" is now my new favourite phrase.
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Permalink Reply by Kelin420 on -
Ditto as well-lol
Rectum? Damn near killed 'em.
Your proctologist called and said he found your head.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Paisley on -
Muslim eh? Ask him about mixing saltwater and freshwater. There is a verse in the Koran that says the two cannot be mixed. The mathematical figure he is discussing is a fallacy chance takes no part in evolution. Here is one of my favorite sites on evolution. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/
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