Russ, I’m going to ask you to have the good form to keep your posts concise and to the point. You asked me if I read all of your points in every post. I try to respond to the pertinent points I find but it is difficult, and it is also time-consuming to address such a volume. I am quite a lot busier now than I was. Indeed, if sheer volume is a tactic to dissuade me from replying at all, it is not a very admirable one, and padding out a post does nothing to add to the substance therein.


I question all the time. When I do research I get my information from different sources, I don’t rely on only one. What is it you think I am not questioning – that all scientists, in every discipline, for hundreds of years, have been weaving a huge conspiracy of lies? I have to say I’m a wee bit skeptical. A skeptic does not accept the validity of an assertion until convincing empirical proof (not anecdote) is presented. Where is your proof that science is a giant conspiracy?

I would actually ask if you are questioning what you read on Hovind’s website. If you are looking for science-based evidence that creationism is fact, do you honestly expect to find good science there?


No, I was merely stating that two can play at this game. Every time you tell me to watch a Hovind video, I will tell you to have a look at what a real scientist says about Hovind’s claims at the 300 Creationist Lies website. If you choose instead to debate one or two of Hovind’s claims with me, I will do so, though it has to be said that the scientist probably does it better.

OK, the definition of evolution, and “parroting.” Let’s start with parroting. This is a claim that someone has copied information verbatim from a source without having understood it. I will ask you to take note of the “not having understood it” part. I understand the information I am giving you. Not as thoroughly as a scientist in some cases, but I don’t talk out of my back end, as they say. If I am not sure about something, I will use a variety of sources to find out. In talking to creationists I have consulted probably more than a hundred different websites, have looked in books, and spoken to actual specialists in the field. This is what most people do who want to learn. The only way to deny the validity of what I’m presenting is to return to the assertion that all scientists are liars. Or, as a novelty, you might try researching some of these things yourself.

Maybe you would like this definition of evolution better. It was written by Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates, 1986:


This is not a “sharp backturn,” it is the definition of evolution that the overwhelming majority of scientists accept. It is free of political ideology. It simply aims to describe how life has changed since it began. Anyone who imposes ideology upon it is engaging in a fallacy.


Your implication is that these leaps were made impossibly quickly, and that the aim of one was to evolve into the other. It took single-celled organisms a few billion years to develop into multicellular organisms. A very long time by anyone’s account. What’s more, the organisms went through gradual changes in small steps over long periods of time. Eventually we ended up with the biological diversity we see today. It is a strawman argument when people like Hovind claim that “it’s ridiculous that dinosaurs can turn into birds” etc etc.

I maintain that the Bible is a religious book, not a scientific one. If you call yourself Christian and are basing it on the Bible, then the Bible is your religious book. Attempting to use science to explain how a literal interpretation of creation in the Bible could be fact is impossible; such evidence does not withstand scientific scrutiny.

You’ll have trouble finding a skeptic who believes in possession at all, let alone the reasons for it that you give. If there are references in the Bible to concepts that can only be explained by modern science, then please give me quotes because I’d like to hear them. Also, quotes for any prophecies you claim to be about events in the modern world. They need to obviously be about those events, rather than general statements that can be interpreted whichever way the believer desires.


No, I said that theism and evolution do not have to be mutually exclusive. You make them so if you choose to believe a literal version of creation.


The overwhelming majority of scientists accept evolution. Like it or not, it is generally accepted by the majority of people in the world. It is supported by a vast amount of evidence across many different scientific disciplines. It’s ridiculous to expect me to regurgitate a whole library of knowledge for you, though I will discuss aspects to the best of my ability if required. On the other hand, presumably you are arguing for the factual nature of creationism. There is a burden of proof on you to explain how creationism explains the observed data better than evolution. Attacking the theory of evolution provides no evidence for creationism. In fact, if evolution were hypothetically thrown out tomorrow, there still would be no more evidence for creation than there is now. Assuming that disproving “a” automatically proves “b” is a logical fallacy.

You have been talking about “irreducible complexity” without giving your definition, but I’ll assume you are taking Behe’s approach in saying that something will not function if an essential part is removed, and therefore this is evidence of design/creation. The first thing I’d say about this is perhaps rather obvious; but if you chopped a duck’s head off, you have removed an essential part and the organism has died. It’s got nothing to do with evolution however.

Someone arguing for IC presumably thinks that evolution requires new organs, body parts, etc to “poof” into existence, fully formed. After all, they can’t be partly formed can they, or “what use is half an eye” etc etc. But evolution isn’t about adding whole new fully functional parts to already existing systems. It’s about modifying already existing parts in minute steps over periods of time – though sometimes multiple coordinated changes can occur when there is a mutation in a regulatory gene. What’s more, evolution isn’t simply a process by which parts are added, but a process by which parts are taken away as well. Organisms do not simply gain new traits while retaining all the old ones unaltered.

Behe’s favourite IC analogy is the mousetrap. He claims that its function depends critically on the presence of all five of its components, and all of the components have to be in place before any mice are caught. Thus the mousetrap is irreducibly complex.

A number of people have proved, however, that this is not the case. They have shown that the parts of a mechanical machine (like the parts of a biochemical “machine”) can be used for different purposes, and that a moustrap can work if up to four of those “critical” five parts are missing. The other parts simply need some rearranging, and change of function. These processes occur in evolution; for example, many organs start as a part that serves a different function and gradually gets co-opted for a new function, like tetrapod legs evolving from fins. You can read in more detail here, and see diagrams of the different mousetraps: http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/Mousetrap.html

We could also use the analogy of a computer. In order to even turn it on, you need at least a motherboard, a CPU, memory, a hard drive, and a power source. Take any of these out and the whole thing is pretty much a piece of useless junk. According to this IC argument, the computer is then an IC device.

But if we look at the history of the computer, what I just described didn't just show up on the market. The computer went through many phases, from a bunch of vacuum tubes to transistors to microchips. According to IC, evolution claims that the computer started out with just a CPU, then over time a mother board appeared out of nowhere, and over more time a hard drive came out of nowhere, etc. That's not how the development of computers worked, and that's certainly not how the evolution of biological “machines” worked.

Nor is the eye irreducibly complex. An eye does not need rods or a lens to function. The simplest kind would be a cluster of light-sensitive cells. In their 1994 paper in Proceedings: Biological Sciences, Nilsson and Pelger describe a sequence of small steps leading from a light-sensitive spot to a lens-bearing eye. Every proto-eye in their sequence can be found in modern organisms. They calculated that even with a consistently pessimistic approach in their estimates, the time required for the evolution of the eye becomes “amazingly short: only a few hundred thousand years.” You can access their paper here: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=09...5<53%3AAPEOTT>2.0.CO%3B2-1

You ask again about signaling molecules. I’m not sure why you’ve chosen this to be a particular point. They act in a basic, physical kind of way. They cause processes to stop and start. The way they stop a process is by physically blocking the mechanisms of DNA and RNA. Sort of like stopping traffic by driving a dump truck into the road. Would you call this a “signal”? And wouldn’t it be irrelevant to talk about the “medium,” or the “protocol,” or the “encoding mechanism”? It isn’t a secret code that stops the traffic, it’s a physical obstruction.

My source for this is a biochemist. When I originally asked him he gave me some interesting information, which I had to ask him to simplify. You are welcome to read it yourself, if it sheds more light on this pressing question:


I figure that a person who has devoted their life to studying this, and been highly trained, is going to give me accurate information. He has no reason not to. This is his science. If you question a source like this then we are simply back to the “all scientists are liars” assertion. Is that what you think I should tell him?


No, we’re talking about the fallacy of using pure probability estimates when evolution doesn’t work that way. Chemicals do not behave in a random, disordered way; they behave according to laws. Evolution is not random, because natural selection acts upon it, and this can involve many different variables. And when beneficial mutations do occur, the organism will have the edge over other similar organisms. It will be “fitter” to cope in its environment.

I’ll say again, because many of your statements make the assumption that scientists believe life evolved in improbably huge leaps: you need to look at evolution as a series of small steps. Large mutations that assemble complicated systems do not happen in a “poof.” Look at the examples I’ve given above to see how these steps could have occurred to produce a complex system where the removal of a key part would cause it to cease to function. In evolutionary terms this is called “scaffolding.”


You’ve been listening to Hovind haven’t you. This is a strawman. Evolutionists do not believe this. In order to simplify this epic discussion that has branched off in so many different directions, I’m going to ask that we not discuss the origins of life here, as this is not addressed by the theory of evolution. There are intriguing theories supported by evidence for how life began, but I’m already resentful about the time it is taking to address all the points here to be honest. Every discussion with you seems to turn into a tome. There’s a life to participate in as well.


We have no such thing, unless you and those who believe you are convinced that what I say based on my education in the past and present comes from lying scientists. I think you ought to provide some evidence for this before you make any more claims that I am being blinded, fooled, etc. You also make a claim that it is “science” when you compare biological systems to the electronic systems that you do understand. You have to be very careful when comparing living with nonliving systems. No one designs computers by duplicating a video card and making one of them serve as a motherboard and a central processor. But that is just how living things evolve. Your version of “science” continually ignores the fact that evolution occurs in small steps over long periods of time and that parts can be duplicated, removed, made to serve other functions, etc. Instead you say that complex systems must have magically come into existence; this is the strawman you set up and then knock down to “prove” that evolution is wrong. The logical fallacy of the strawman only works when your audience doesn’t know any better and is willing to believe your false claims about your opponent’s position.