“- Where has macro evolution ever been observed?”
Biologists define evolution as a change in the gene pool of a population over time. One example is insects developing a resistance to pesticides over the period of a few years. Even most Creationists recognize that evolution at this level is a fact. What they don’t appreciate is that this rate of evolution is all that is required to produce the diversity of all living things from a common ancestor.
The origin of new species by evolution has also been observed, both in the laboratory and in the wild. See, for example, (Weinberg, J.R., V.R. Starczak, and D. Jorg, 1992, “Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event in the laboratory.” Evolution 46: 1214-1220).
Even without these direct observations, it would be wrong to say that evolution hasn’t been observed. Evidence isn’t limited to seeing something happen before your eyes. Evolution makes predictions about what we would expect to see in the fossil record, comparative anatomy, genetic sequences, geographical distribution of species, etc., and these predictions have been verified many times over. The number of observations supporting evolution is overwhelming.
What hasn’t been observed is one animal abruptly changing into a radically different one, such as a frog changing into a cow. This is not a problem for evolution because evolution doesn’t propose occurrences even remotely like that. In fact, if we ever observed a frog turn into a cow, it would be very strong evidence against evolution.
“What’s the mechanism for getting new complexity such as new vital organs?”
A long-standing challenge to evolutionary theory has been whether it can explain the origin of complex organismal features. We examined this issue using digital organisms – computer programs that self-replicate, mutate, compete and evolve. Populations of digital organisms often evolved the ability to perform complex logic functions requiring the coordinated execution of many genomic instructions. Complex functions evolved by building on simpler functions that had evolved earlier, provided that these were also selectively favoured. However, no particular intermediate stage was essential for evolving complex functions. The first genotypes able to perform complex functions differed from their non-performing parents by only one or two mutations, but differed from the ancestor by many mutations that were also crucial to the new functions. In some cases, mutations that were deleterious when they appeared served as stepping-stones in the evolution of complex features. These findings show how complex functions can originate by random mutation and natural selection.
“How, for example, could a caterpillar evolve into a butterfly?”
This is an argument from incredulity. Because one does not understand how butterfly metamorphosis evolved does not mean it is too complex to have evolved.
Growth patterns intermediate to full metamorphosis already exist, ranging from growth with no metamorphosis (such as with silverfish) to partial metamorphosis (as with true bugs and mayflies) complete metamorphosis with relatively little change in form (as with rove beetles), and the metamorphosis seen in butterflies. It is surely possible that similar intermediate stages could have developed over time to produce butterfly metamorphosis from an ancestor without metamorphosis. In fact, an explanation exists for the evolution of metamorphosis based largely on changes in the endocrinology of development (Truman and Riddiford 1999).
Butterflies don’t evolve from caterpillars; butterflies develop from caterpillars. How it happens is a problem in developmental biology, not evolutionary biology. It is akin to the problem of how adult humans develop from embryos. It happens every day, so it obviously is not a theoretical difficulty.
Fruit flies go through the same developmental stages as caterpillars and butterflies, and the research on fruit fly genetics is very extensive. Anyone who is interested in how butterflies develop is advised to look in that research.
“- Where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there if your theory is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don’t we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both?”
transitional fossil is one that looks like it’s from an organism intermediate between two lineages, meaning it has some characteristics of lineage A, some characteristics of lineage B, and probably some characteristics part way between the two. Transitional fossils can occur between groups of any taxonomic level, such as between species, between orders, etc. Ideally, the transitional fossil should be found stratigraphically between the first occurrence of the ancestral lineage and the first occurrence of the descendent lineage, but evolution also predicts the occurrence of some fossils with transitional morphology that occur after both lineages. There’s nothing in the theory of evolution which says an intermediate form (or any organism, for that matter) can have only one line of descendents, or that the intermediate form itself has to go extinct when a line of descendents evolves.
To say there are no transitional fossils is simply false. Paleontology has progressed a bit since Origin of Species was published, uncovering thousands of transitional fossils, by both the temporally restrictive and the less restrictive definitions. The fossil record is still spotty and always will be; erosion and the rarity of conditions favorable to fossilization make that inevitable. Also, transitions may occur in a small population, in a small area, and/or in a relatively short amount of time; when any of these conditions hold, the chances of finding the transitional fossils goes down. Still, there are still many instances where excellent sequences of transitional fossils exist. Some notable examples are the transitions from reptile to mammal, from land animal to early whale, and from early ape to human.
The misconception about the lack of transitional fossils is perpetuated in part by a common way of thinking about categories. When people think about a category like “dog” or “ant,” they often subconsciously believe that there is a well-defined boundary around the category, or that there is some eternal ideal form (for philosophers, the Platonic idea) which defines the category. This kind of thinking leads people to declare that Archaeopteryx is “100% bird,” when it is clearly a mix of bird and reptile features (with more reptile than bird features, in fact). In truth, categories are man-made and artificial. Nature is not constrained to follow them, and it doesn’t.
Some Creationists claim that the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium was proposed (by Eldredge and Gould) to explain gaps in the fossil record. Actually, it was proposed to explain the relative rarity of transitional forms, not their total absence, and to explain why speciation appears to happen relatively quickly in some cases, gradually in others, and not at all during some periods for some species. In no way does it deny that transitional sequences exist. In fact, both Gould and Eldredge are outspoken opponents of Creationism.
“-Who are the evolutionary ancestors of the insects?”
Insect fossils before the major diversification of insects (in the Carboniferous) are far from abundant. Insects are believed, from genomic data, to have originated near the beginning of the Silurian (434.2-421.1 Mya; Gaunt and Miles 2002), but the first two hexapod fossils are from Rhynie chert, about 396-407 Mya (Engel and Grimaldi 2004; Whalley and Jarzembowski 1981). As of 2004, only two other insect fossils were known from the Devonian (Labandeira et al. 1988). Two of these fossils consist only of mandibles, and another is a crushed head. In short, the first eighty-five million years of the history of insects is preserved in only four fossils, three of them quite fragmentary. With such a scarcity of fossils, the lack of fossils showing the origins of insects is unremarkable.
“The evolutionary tree that’s in the textbook: where’s its trunk and where are its branches?”
The claim refers to results that indicate that horizontal gene transfer was common in the very earliest life. In other words, genetic information was not inherited only from one’s immediate ancestor; some was obtained from entirely different organisms, too. As a result, the tree of life does not stem from a single trunk but from a reticulated collection of stems (Woese 2000). This does not invalidate the theory of evolution, though. It says only that another mechanism of heredity was once more common.
Horizontal gene transfer does not invalidate phylogenetics. Horizontal gene transfer is not a major factor affecting modern life, including all macroscopic life: “Although HGT does occur with important evolutionary consequences, classical Darwinian lineages seem to be the dominant mode of evolution for modern organisms” (Kurland et al. 2003, 9658; see also Daubin et al. 2003). And it is still possible to compute phylogenies while taking horizontal gene transfer into account (Kim and Salisbury 2001).
“- What evidence is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble itself? What about the 4000 books of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your 100 trillion cells? If astronomers received an intelligent radio signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that it came from an intelligent source.”
DNA could have evolved gradually from a simpler replicator; RNA is a likely candidate, since it can catalyze its own duplication (Jeffares et al. 1998; Leipe et al. 1999; Poole et al. 1998). The RNA itself could have had simpler precursors, such as peptide nucleic acids (B̦hler et al. 1995). A deoxyribozyme can both catalyze its own replication and function to cleave RNA Рall without any protein enzymes (Levy and Ellington 2003).
“- Why then doesn’t the vast information sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacteria also imply an intelligent source?”
There is no need for a creator explanation, ockham’s razor.
“- How could organs as complicated as the eye or the ear or the brain of even a tiny bird ever come about by chance or natural processes? How could a bacterial motor evolve?”
The source making the claim usually quotes Darwin saying that the evolution of the eye seems “absurd in the highest degree”. However, Darwin follows that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps (Darwin 1872).
photosensitive cell
aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
pigment cells forming a small depression
pigment cells forming a deeper depression
the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
muscles allowing the lens to adjust
All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.
Evidence for one step in the evolution of the vertebrate eye comes from comparative anatomy and genetics. The vertebrate βγ-crystallin genes, which code for several proteins crucial for the lens, are very similar to the Ciona βγ-crystallin gene. Ciona is an urochordate, a distant relative of vertebrates. Ciona’s single βγ-crystallin gene is expressed in its otolith, a pigmented sister cell of the light-sensing ocellus. The origin of the lens appears to be based on co-optation of previously existing elements in a lensless system.
Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.
Not much complexity is needed for a functional ear. All that is necessary is a nerve connected to something that can vibrate. Insects have evolved “ears” on at least eleven different parts of their bodies, from antennae to legs (Hoy and Robert 1996). Even humans detect very low frequencies via tactile sensation, not through their ears.
The transition from reptile to mammal shows some of the intermediate stages in human hearing. Jaw bones, which likely helped the hearing of therapsid reptiles, became co-opted exclusively for hearing in the middle ear.
This is an example of the argument from incredulity. That one does not know how something happened does not mean it cannot have happened.
Similarly would be elements of bacteria.
“- If the solar system evolved, why do three planets spin backwards? Why do at least 6 moons revolve backwards?”
The “backwards” planets and moons are in no way contrary to the nebular hypothesis. Part of the hypothesis is that the nebula of gas and dust would accrete into planetessimals. Catastrophic collisions between these would be part of planet building. Such collisions and other natural processes can account for the retrograde planets and moons.
The only moons that orbit retrograde are small asteroid-sized distant satellites of giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, plus Triton (Neptune’s large moon) and Charon (Pluto’s satellite). The small retrograde satellites of Jupiter and Saturn were probably asteroids captured by the giant planets long after formation of the solar system. It is actually easier to be captured into a retrograde orbit. The Neptune system also contains one moon, Nereid, with a highly eccentric orbit. It appears that some sort of violent capture event may have taken place. The Pluto-Charon system is orbiting approximately “on its side,” technically retrograde, with tidally locked rotation. As these are small bodies in the outer solar system, and binaries are likely to have been formed through collisions or gravitational capture, this does not violate the nebular hypothesis.
Uranus is rotating more or less perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. This may be the result of an off-center collision between two protoplanets during formation. Venus is rotating retrograde but extremely slowly, with its axis almost exactly perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. The rotation of this planet may well have started out prograde, but solar and planetary tides acting on its dense atmosphere have been shown to be a likely cause of the present state of affairs. It is probably not a coincidence that at every inferior conjunction, Venus turns the same side toward Earth, as Earth is the planet that contributes most to tidal forces on Venus.
Orbital motions account for 99.9% of the angular momentum of the solar system. A real evidential problem would be presented if some of the planets orbited the sun in the opposite direction to others, or in very different planes. However, all the planets orbit in the same direction, confirming the nebular hypothesis, and nearly in the same plane. A further confirmation comes from the composition of the giant planets, which are similar to the sun’s composition of hydrogen and helium. Giant planets could hold on to all of their light elements, but small planets like Earth and Mars could not.
“- Why do we have comets if the solar system is billions of years old?”
The comets that entered the inner solar system a very long time ago indeed have evaporated. However, new comets enter the inner solar system from time to time. The Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt hold many comets deep in space, beyond the orbit of Neptune, where they do not evaporate. Occasionally, gravitational perturbations from other comets bump one of them into a highly elliptical orbit, which causes it to near the sun.
“- Where did all the helium go?”
Helium is a very light atom, and some of the helium in the upper atmosphere can reach escape velocity simply via its temperature. Thermal escape of helium alone is not enough to account for its scarcity in the atmosphere, but helium in the atmosphere also gets ionized and follows the earth’s magnetic field lines. When ion outflow is considered, the escape of helium from the atmosphere balances its production from radioactive elements (Lie-Svendsen and Rees 1996).
“- How did sexual reproduction evolve?”
The variety of life cycles is very great. It is not simply a matter of being sexual or asexual. There are many intermediate stages. A gradual origin, with each step favored by natural selection, is possible (Kondrashov 1997). The earliest steps involve single-celled organisms exchanging genetic information; they need not be distinct sexes. Males and females most emphatically would not evolve independently. Sex, by definition, depends on both male and female acting together. As sex evolved, there would have been some incompatibilities causing sterility (just as there are today), but these would affect individuals, not whole populations, and the genes that cause such incompatibility would rapidly be selected against.
Many hypotheses have been proposed for the evolutionary advantage of sex (Barton and Charlesworth 1998). There is good experimental support for some of these, including resistance to deleterious mutation load (Davies et al. 1999; Paland and Lynch 2006) and more rapid adaptation in a rapidly changing environment, especially to acquire resistance to parasites (Sá Martins 2000).
"- If the big bang occurred, where did all the information around us and in us come from? Has an explosion ever produced order? Or as Sir Isaac Newton said, “Who wound up the clock?”
The big bang is supported by a great deal of evidence:
Einstein’s general theory of relativity implies that the universe cannot be static; it must be either expanding or contracting.
The more distant a galaxy is, the faster it is receding from us (the Hubble law). This indicates that the universe is expanding. An expanding universe implies that the universe was small and compact in the distant past.
The big bang model predicts that cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation should appear in all directions, with a blackbody spectrum and temperature about 3 degrees K. We observe an exact blackbody spectrum with a temperature of 2.73 degrees K.
The CMB is even to about one part in 100,000. There should be a slight unevenness to account for the uneven distribution of matter in the universe today. Such unevenness is observed, and at a predicted amount.
The big bang predicts the observed abundances of primordial hydrogen, deuterium, helium, and lithium. No other models have been able to do so.
The big bang predicts that the universe changes through time. Because the speed of light is finite, looking at large distances allows us to look into the past. We see, among other changes, that quasars were more common and stars were bluer when the universe was younger.
Note that most of these points are not simply observations that fit with the theory; the big bang theory predicted them.
Inconsistencies are not necessarily unresolvable. The clumpiness of the universe, for example, was resolved by finding unevenness in the CMB. Dark matter has been observed in the effects it has on star and galaxy motions; we simply do not know what it is yet.
There are still unresolved observations. For example, we do not understand why the expansion of the universe seems to be speeding up. However, the big bang has enough supporting evidence behind it that it is likely that new discoveries will add to it, not overthrow it. For example, inflationary universe theory proposes that the size of the universe increased exponentially when the universe was a fraction of a second old (Guth 1997). It was proposed to explain why the big bang did not create large numbers of magnetic monopoles. It also accounts for the observed flatness of space, and it predicted quantitatively the pattern of unevenness of the CMB. Inflationary theory is a significant addition to big bang theory, but it is an extension of big bang theory, not a replacement.
“- Why do so many of the earth’s ancient cultures have flood legends?”
Flood myths are widespread, but they are not all the same myth. They differ in many important aspects, including
reasons for the flood. (Most do not give a reason.)
who survived. (Almost none have only a family of eight surviving.)
what they took with them. (Very few saved samples of all life.)
how they survived. (In about half the myths, people escaped to high ground; some flood myths have no survivors.)
what they did afterwards. (Few feature any kind of sacrifice after the flood.)
If the world’s flood myths arose from a common source, then we would expect evidence of common descent. An analysis of their similarities and differences should show either a branching tree such as the evolutionary tree of life, or, if the original biblical myth was preserved unchanged, the differences should be greater the further one gets from Babylon. Neither pattern matches the evidence. Flood myths are best explained by repeated independent origins with some local spread and some spread by missionaries. The biblical flood myth in particular has close parallels only to other myths from the same region, with which it probably shares a common source, and to versions spread to other cultures by missionaries (Isaak 2002).
Flood myths are likely common because floods are common; the commonness of the myth in no way implies a global flood. Myths about snakes are even more common than myths about floods, but that does not mean there was once one snake surrounding the entire earth.
“- Where did matter come from? What about space, time, energy, and even the laws of physics?”
Some questions are harder to answer than others. But although we do not have a full understanding of the origin of the universe, we are not completely in the dark. We know, for example, that space comes from the expansion of the universe. The total energy of the universe may be zero. Cosmologists have hypotheses for the other questions that are consistent with observations (Hawking 2001). For example, it is possible that there is more than one dimension of time, the other dimension being unbounded, so there is no overall origin of time. Another possibility is that the universe is in an eternal cycle without beginning or end. Each big bang might end in a big crunch to start a new cycle (Steinhardt and Turok 2002) or at long intervals, our universe collides with a mirror universe, creating the universe anew (Seife 2002).
One should keep in mind that our experiences in everyday life are poor preparation for the extreme and bizarre conditions one encounters in cosmology. The stuff cosmologists deal with is very hard to understand. To reject it because of that, though, would be to retreat into the argument from incredulity.
Creationists cannot explain origins at all. Saying “God did it” is not an explanation, because it is not tied to any objective evidence. It does not rule out any possibility or even any impossibility. It does not address questions of “how” and “why,” and it raises questions such as “which God?” and “how did God originate?” In the explaining game, cosmologists are far out in front.
“- How did the first living cell begin? That’s a greater miracle than for a bacteria to evolve to a man.”
The theory of evolution applies as long as life exists. How that life came to exist is not relevant to evolution. Claiming that evolution does not apply without a theory of abiogenesis makes as much sense as saying that umbrellas do not work without a theory of meteorology.
Abiogenesis is a fact. Regardless of how you imagine it happened (note that creation is a theory of abiogenesis), it is a fact that there once was no life on earth and that now there is. Thus, even if evolution needs abiogenesis, it has it.
“How did that first cell reproduce?” Asexually. They still do it.
“- Just before life appeared, did the atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen?”
There is a variety of evidence that the early atmosphere did not have significant oxygen (Turner 1981).
Banded iron formations are layers of hematite (Fe2O3) and other iron oxides deposited in the ocean 2.5 to 1.8 billion years ago. The conventional interpretation is that oxygen was introduced into the atmosphere for the first time in significant quantities beginning about 2.5 billion years ago when photosynthesis evolved. This caused the free iron dissolved in the ocean water to oxidize and precipitate. Thus, the banded iron formations mark the transition from an early earth with little free oxygen and much dissolved iron in water to present conditions with lots of free oxygen and little dissolved iron.
In rocks older than the banded iron formations, uranite and pyrite exist as detrital grains, or sedimentary grains that were rolling around in stream beds and beaches. These minerals are not stable for long periods in the present high-oxygen conditions.
“Red beds,” which are terrestrial sediments with lots of iron oxides, need an oxygen atmosphere to form. They are not found in rocks older than about 2.3 billion years, but they become increasingly common afterward.
Sulfur isotope signatures of ancient sediments show that oxidative weathering was very low 2.4 billion years ago (Farquhar et al. 2000).
The dominant scientific view is that the early atmosphere had 0.1 percent oxygen or less (Copley 2001).
Free oxygen in the atmosphere today is mainly the result of photosynthesis. Before photosynthetic plants and bacteria appeared, we would expect little oxygen in the atmosphere for lack of a source. The oldest fossils (over a billion years older than the transition to an oxygen atmosphere) were bacteria; we do not find fossils of fish, clams, or other organisms that need oxygen in the oldest sediments.
“- Why aren’t meteorites found in supposedly old rocks?”
Several meteorites have been found, in strata from Precambrian to Miocene (Matson 1994; Schmitz et al. 1997). There is evidence that a major asteroid disruption event about 500 million years ago caused an increase in meteor rates during the mid-Ordovician; more than forty mid-Ordovician fossil meteorites were found in one Ordovician limestone quarry (Schmitz et al. 2003). In addition, many impact craters and other evidence of impacts have been found.
“- If it takes intelligence to make an arrowhead, why doesn’t it take vastly more intelligence to create a human? Do you really believe that hydrogen will turn into people if you wait long enough?”
I believe you are talking about Irreducible complexity. Irreducible complexity can evolve. It is defined as a system that loses its function if any one part is removed, so it only indicates that the system did not evolve by the addition of single parts with no change in function. That still leaves several evolutionary mechanisms:
deletion of parts
addition of multiple parts; for example, duplication of much or all of the system (Pennisi 2001)
change of function
addition of a second function to a part (Aharoni et al. 2004)
gradual modification of parts
All of these mechanisms have been observed in genetic mutations. In particular, deletions and gene duplications are fairly common (Dujon et al. 2004; Hooper and Berg 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000), and together they make irreducible complexity not only possible but expected. In fact, it was predicted by Nobel-prize-winning geneticist Hermann Muller almost a century ago (Muller 1918, 463-464). Muller referred to it as interlocking complexity (Muller 1939).
Evolutionary origins of some irreducibly complex systems have been described in some detail. For example, the evolution of the Krebs citric acid cycle has been well studied (Meléndez-Hevia et al. 1996), and the evolution of an “irreducible” system of a hormone-receptor system has been elucidated (Bridgham et al. 2006). Irreducibility is no obstacle to their formation.
Even if irreducible complexity did prohibit Darwinian evolution, the conclusion of design does not follow. Other processes might have produced it. Irreducible complexity is an example of a failed argument from incredulity.
Irreducible complexity is poorly defined. It is defined in terms of parts, but it is far from obvious what a “part” is. Logically, the parts should be individual atoms, because they are the level of organization that does not get subdivided further in biochemistry, and they are the smallest level that biochemists consider in their analysis. Behe, however, considered sets of molecules to be individual parts, and he gave no indication of how he made his determinations.
Systems that have been considered irreducibly complex might not be. For example:
The mousetrap that Behe used as an example of irreducible complexity can be simplified by bending the holding arm slightly and removing the latch.
The bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex because it can lose many parts and still function, either as a simpler flagellum or a secretion system. Many proteins of the eukaryotic flagellum (also called a cilium or undulipodium) are known to be dispensable, because functional swimming flagella that lack these proteins are known to exist.
In spite of the complexity of Behe’s protein transport example, there are other proteins for which no transport is necessary (see Ussery 1999 for references).
The immune system example that Behe includes is not irreducibly complex because the antibodies that mark invading cells for destruction might themselves hinder the function of those cells, allowing the system to function (albeit not as well) without the destroyer molecules of the complement system.
“- Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA–which can only be produced by DNA?”
DNA could have evolved gradually from a simpler replicator; RNA is a likely candidate, since it can catalyze its own duplication (Jeffares et al. 1998; Leipe et al. 1999; Poole et al. 1998). The RNA itself could have had simpler precursors, such as peptide nucleic acids (B̦hler et al. 1995). A deoxyribozyme can both catalyze its own replication and function to cleave RNA Рall without any protein enzymes (Levy and Ellington 2003).
“- Can you name one reasonable hypothesis on how the moon got there–any hypothesis that is consistent with all the data? Why aren’t students told the scientific reasons for rejecting all the evolutionary theories for the moon’s origin?”
There are several websites a simple internet search will turn up on moon orgins. I’m not exactly familiar with it, but it does not fit into evolution at all (like the big bang, abiogenisis, etc). Either way its out there if you want to find it. I assume you do not.
“- Why won’t qualified evolutionists enter into a written scientific debate?”
The proper venue for debating scientific issues is at science conferences and in peer-reviewed scientific journals. In such a venue, the claims can be checked by anyone at their leisure. Creationists, with very rare exceptions, are unwilling to debate there.
Public debates are usually set up so that the winners are determined by public speaking ability, not by quality of material.
Debate formats, both spoken and written, usually do not allow space for sufficient examination of points. A common tactic used by some prominent creationists is to rattle off dozens of bits of misinformation in rapid succession(as you are doing here, thank me for taking this immense amount of time to answer them). It is impossible for the responder to address each in the time or space allotted.
Notwithstanding the above points, there have been several debates, both live and online.
“- Would you like to explain the origin of any of the following twenty-one features of the earth:
…if so, I must remind you that they all can be explained as a result of a global flood.”
We know what to expect of a sudden massive flood, namely:
a wide, relatively shallow bed, not a deep, sinuous river channel.
anastamosing channels (i.e., a braided river system), not a single, well-developed channel.
coarse-grained sediments, including boulders and gravel, on the floor of the canyon.
streamlined relict islands.
The Scablands in Washington state were produced by such a flood and show such features (Allen et al. 1986; Baker 1978; Bretz 1969; Waitt 1985). Such features are also seen on Mars at Kasei Vallis and Ares Vallis (Baker 1978; NASA Quest n.d.). They do not appear in the Grand Canyon. Compare relief maps of the two areas to see for yourself.
The same flood that was supposed to carve the Grand Canyon was also supposed to lay down the miles of sediment (and a few lava flows) from which the canyon is carved. A single flood cannot do both. Creationists claim that the year of the Flood included several geological events, but that still stretches credulity.
The Grand Canyon contains some major meanders. Upstream of the Grand Canyon, the San Juan River (around Gooseneck State Park, southeast Utah) has some of the most extreme meandering imaginable. The canyon is 1,000 feet high, with the river flowing five miles while progressing one mile as the crow flies (American Southwest n.d.). There is no way a single massive flood could carve this.
Recent flood sediments would be unconsolidated. If the Grand Canyon were carved in unconsolidated sediments, the sides of the canyon would show obvious slumping.
The inner canyon is carved into the strongly metamorphosed sediments of the Vishnu Group, which are separated by an angular unconformity from the overlying sedimentary rocks, and also in the Zoroaster Granite, which intrudes the Vishnu Group. These rocks, by all accounts, would have been quite hard before the Flood began.
Along the Grand Canyon are tributaries, which are as deep as the Grand Canyon itself. These tributaries are roughly perpendicular to the main canyon. A sudden massive flood would not produce such a pattern.
Sediment from the Colorado River has been shifted northward over the years by movement along the San Andreas and related faults (Winker and Kidwell 1986). Such movement of the delta sediment would not occur if the canyon were carved as a single event.
The lakes that Austin proposed as the source for the carving floodwaters are not large compared with the Grand Canyon itself. The flood would have to remove more material than the floodwaters themselves.
If a brief interlude of rushing water produced the Grand Canyon, there should be many more such canyons. Why are there not other grand canyons surrounding all the margins of all continents?
There is a perfectly satisfactory gradual explanation for the formation of the Grand Canyon that avoids all these problems. Sediments deposited about two billion years ago were metamorphosed and intruded by granite to become today’s basement layers. Other sediments were deposited in the late Proterozoic and were subsequently folded, faulted, and eroded. More sediments were deposited in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, with a period of erosion in between. The Colorado Plateau started rising gradually about seventy million years ago. As it rose, existing rivers deepened, carving through the previous sediments (Harris and Kiver 1985, 273-282).
Almost all features of the earth can be explained by conventional geology, including processes such as plate tectonics and glaciation. A global flood does not help to explain any of the exceptions.
“In 1981 22 British Museum biologists said ‘Evolution is not a fact’ (I’d like to see a source for this) yet still today we are being bombarded by evolution as the only credible way man came to be on the earth. It is a fact that more scientists today believe evolution as a theory it can no longer be taken seriously. So why are we still being forced fed this ‘theory’.”
The word theory, in the context of science, does not imply uncertainty. It means “a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena” (Barnhart 1948). In the case of the theory of evolution, the following are some of the phenomena involved. All are facts:
Life appeared on earth more than two billion years ago;
Life forms have changed and diversified over life’s history;
Species are related via common descent from one or a few common ancestors;
Natural selection is a significant factor affecting how species change.
Many other facts are explained by the theory of evolution as well.
The theory of evolution has proved itself in practice. It has useful applications in epidemiology, pest control, drug discovery, and other areas (Bull and Wichman 2001; Eisen and Wu 2002; Searls 2003).
Besides the theory, there is the fact of evolution, the observation that life has changed greatly over time. The fact of evolution was recognized even before Darwin’s theory. The theory of evolution explains the fact.
If “only a theory” were a real objection, creationists would also be issuing disclaimers complaining about the theory of gravity, atomic theory, the germ theory of disease, and the theory of limits (on which calculus is based). The theory of evolution is no less valid than any of these. Even the theory of gravity still receives serious challenges (Milgrom 2002). Yet the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is still a fact.
Creationism is neither theory nor fact; it is, at best, only an opinion. Since it explains nothing, it is scientifically useless.
“The answer is Money - There are too many people making too much money in careers dedicated to evolution. It is a science that has not evolved with evidence, it hides what it does not like, destroys what it fears and invents what it needs. It has the clout to silence the truth, and anyone who dares to question.”
I’ve provided plenty of evidence to rebutt all of your statements, and these are the short answers mind you. I trust you will do me the courtesy of reading this as I have you.
merlin[/quote]