My friend and very esteemed colleague Duane Proud two days ago wrote an article in which he asked evolutionists to provide examples of bad evolutionary arguments they have seen used in debates and discussions on origins. And he provided a list of twelve examples to help get the ball rolling, asking whether evolutionists would concede that any of the arguments listed are bad—and if so, which ones—or provide other examples of evolutionary arguments they have seen used which are bad. “In other words,” he said, “I’d like evolutionists to be self-critical and provide a list of arguments they would endorse as ‘arguments evolutionists should not use’.” Duane wanted to see if there were any among our evolutionist readers “who are capable of reflecting on the merits and shortcomings of an argument,” which could be demonstrated by their providing “any arguments for evolution they think are lacking and why.”

Not a single response.

Let me clarify that: not a single response that actually answered the question Duane was asking. He received several responses but they mocked Young Earth creationists, defended many of the arguments listed as actually good, provided links to web pages that explain what biological evolution is and why it is true, or they gave completely retarded examples of arguments I’m quite sure nobody ever uses—like the gems that Nocterro provided, e.g., “Evolution is true because my cup is green.” (Given that he values philosophical discipline, he should have known better; moreover, he is the one person I expected relevant and intellectually honest answers from.) But when it came to the question Duane had actually asked, there was not a single response.

So I want to demonstrate something about intellectual honesty. I want to put forward the same question but this time directed toward creationists. That is, I would like the creationists out there to be self-critical and provide examples of arguments they would concede as ‘arguments creationists should not use’. Unlike evolutionists, I know that creationists are capable of reflecting on the merits and shortcomings of an argument and can provide creationist arguments they think are lacking and why. The complete silence from evolutionists regarding Duane’s question will be deafening in comparison to the intellectual honesty and self-criticism of creationists. The contrast of responses will say something important about dogmatism.

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In a recent article from Science Daily [1] we find a compelling bit of science. Evidently the thinking is that humans became the ‘hairless ape’ we are because we evolved in a really hot region in East Africa. You see, the need to “stay cool in that cradle of human evolution may relate, at least in part, to why pre-humans learned to walk upright, lost the fur that covered the bodies of their predecessors and became able to sweat more,” Johns Hopkins University earth scientist Benjamin Passey said. [2] These constituted an “evolutionary advantage” these pre-humans gained. What I find curious, however, is in what intelligible sense this granted an evolutionary advantage when other fauna in that region or similar climates supposedly evolved just fine, walking around on all fours and covered in hair, etc. (picture animals like buffalo, wolf, baboon and such).

Surely the Panthera genus had even more selection forces acting upon them, being not only covered in fur but walking around so close to the ground (which radiates absorbed heat, so they get cooked on both sides). What do you suppose they think of this robust evolutionary science?

1. Johns Hopkins University. “Some Like It Hot: Site of Human Evolution Was Scorching.” Science Daily, 8 June 2010 (Accessed 10 June 2010.)
2. Benjamin H. Passey, Naomi E. Levin, Thure E. Cerling, Francis H. Brown, and John M. Eiler. “High-temperature environments of human evolution in East Africa based on bond ordering in paleosol carbonates.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1001824107

According to a recent CreationSafaris^[1] post:

Some Cambridge scientists engineered a four-character genetic code and made some proteins with it. They guided the process at every step, but claim that they “evolved” this code. Is that a fair use of language? This strange admixture of concepts is found in today’s issue [18 March 2010] of Nature. The confusion began right in the title: “Encoding multiple unnatural amino acids via evolution of a quadruplet-decoding ribosome.” [emphasis in original]

http://creationsafaris.com/crev201003.htm#20100318a

After summarising the work as reported in the scientific journal Nature, they rightly observe the equivocation:

…everything was intelligently designed, both the natural and unnatural codes and functions. This paper was one of the best examples in recent memory of Truman’s Law: “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.” Using evolve as a synonym for design is a clever way to blow smoke using equivocation. Words mean things. This has nothing to do with evolution in the way Darwin used it, and in the way the debate rages today. It has everything to do with intelligently designing codes to synthesize things they would not naturally do (that is, without the intervention of a human mind). These human designers did not “evolve” anything, and they did not rule out intelligent design in the “natural” systems. If they really wanted to talk about evolution, they should have left the lab and let “nature” take its course. [emphasis in original]

1. CreationSafaris is highly recommended and would be in my Top5 all time websites across all genres. Their team constantly survey the main stream media and secular scientific journals and are well-equipped to point out the many equivocations, failings, misgivings and “baloney” associated with many of their claims. It is one of the best places to get your secular [materialistic] brainwash washed.

[Last Updated: 22 February 2010]

Dr. Terry Mortenson provides a great example of what evolution isn’t in his review of a 33-page 2004 National Geographic cover story which asked, “Was Darwin wrong?”

It’s examples exactly like this that are typically paraded as evolution in action, when really it is nothing of the sort.

The bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, is troublesome to humans, but doctors can destroy it with an antibiotic. After the patient takes the antibiotic, it is absorbed through the cell wall of the bacterium. It has the genetic information to make an enzyme which reacts with the antibiotic converting it into a poison, killing the bacterium. But due to a mutation, some H. pylori cannot make the enzyme and so cannot convert the antibiotic and so do not die but reproduce, giving the patient and doctor a new problem. The mutant survived through a loss of information, which is not a process that will eventually lead to an increase of information to change a bacterium over millions of years into a biologist.

http://creation.com/national-geographic-is-wrong-and-so-was-darwin

In the scenario above the organism with the mutation has indeed – to use evolutionary language – gained an advantage over the other H. pylori in an environment with the antibiotic present. So has the H. pylori evolved? Well that depends on what you mean by evolution. Is the change that occurred in the organism in the direction for the bacterium to develop new body parts or body plans; is it on it’s way to becoming a baboon, a bird, or a badger? Most certainly the answer is NO. The information change is a negative one, not a positive one. In fact in this example not only is no new information created but the mutation destroyed the information in the bacterium’s genome that would normally have allowed it to produce an enzyme. So the non-evolved H. pylori can make the enzyme and the so-called evolved ones cannot; a damaging mutation with a beneficial side effect. Yet examples just like this (information-destroying changes) are often used to provide support for macro evolution, which requires observable information-gaining changes.

If it makes it any easier to understand, believing that these kinds of changes support the evolutionary theory is analogous to believing that your bank balance will steadily increase the more money you take out. Wish I had a bank account like that!