Creationists are constantly harping on the difference between “micro-evolution” and “macro-evolution”. ‘Micro’ being the small changes within a population that is readily observable in nature and the lab. ‘Macro’ being the larger changes between higher taxonomic levels. Personally, I greatly dislike this artificial distinction. There is evolution.
Tag Evolution
I was reading John’s free book today(PDF) (Thanks John!) and came across this quote, which so well refutes one of…
Bull cookies. Creationists have been claiming this for decades. Very often, they will also talk about how mutations damage genes…
Creationists complain when science can’t do in 20 minutes what it takes nature millions of years to do. Induced mutations…
We’ve finished talking about fossils and now we move to ‘presently observed nature weaknesses’ (I’m not even going to comment on the exceedingly poor wording.). What the Texas creationists have done is set up a system where each bit of evidence for evolution is considered individually and dismissed. Then, they claim that the entire theory has problems. As we shall see here, this causes them some problems.
This is another classic. It’s been around for decades, if not hundreds of years. Where are the transitional fossils?
Ah, this is a modern classic. Indeed, this is what the idea of intelligent design is based on. I could go for hours on this topic. I will try to restrict myself to only refutations of this creationist claim.
There is no known natural source of the information that is present in all life systems. Random processes are never known to produce information.
Some things are constants. Death, taxes, and southern states trying to pass religious bills in the name of education. The latest is from Oklahoma and it’s not even pretneding to have the students’ best interest at heart.
Oxygen can damage us though. It can react with many different types of molecules. It can damage things like amino acids, proteins, and the nucleic acids. Which brings us to the next claim by Texas creationists.
Photo dissociation of water vapor has been a source of oxygen since the Earth formed, and there is substantial geologic evidence that a significant amount of oxygen existed in the atmosphere prior to the advent of photosynthesis. Oxygen breaks down amino acids and sugars that are postulated to have formed!
In part 3 of this series, I’ll take two of the claims made by the Strength’s and Weaknesses website, as they really are the same thing. I’m not sure if the author thinks that they are two different things or what, but it is odd. Of course, while the science is not settled, it is far from the claims of the website.
No known way to achieve 100% left-handed amino acids in proteins or the 100% right-handed sugars in RNA and DNA – all of which are universal to life systems.
All natural processes are known to produce a 50-50% mixture of left-handed and right-handed molecules.