My son needs some help

[renie408]

Dave Nutting, founder of the Alpha Omega Institute is coming to Clemson in a couple of days to give a talk entitled "Was Darwin Wrong?". I wanted to give my son a bullet point version of the case for evolution that could counteract Mr. Nutting's talk. Any information you could add to my list would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help!

[1ProudAtheist]

1. This Seems Applicable

"During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world... The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes... In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vase power in the hands of priests." -Albert Einstein

[Warpy]

2. Well, nothing absolutely bulletproof exists now

but as the genomes of most species are unraveled, science will likely find the mechanisms for dramatic changes within species and those mechanisms will not involve a god.

They've already discovered evidence in sheep that live birth likely arose from a retrovirus, that the precursor animal was an egg laying creature and the retrovirus reordered the DNA to change the egg secreting organs to egg carrying and nurturing organs, probably going through marsupialism somewhere during the evolutionary process.

In any case, they've replicated evolution in the laboratory by subjecting fruit flies to environmental stress, producing an entirely new genus of fly.

Evolution is a fact. The only thing left up for debate is its mechanism(s).

[TheMastersNemesis]

5. Exactly Right

Darwin never claimed that evolution was atheistic. He was just trying to explain the method by which it happened. The fundie nutzies believe in the "poof" method what a creature just materialized out of thin air because God said so. You can't argue with the fatally and determinedly stupid.

That is correct about fruit flies. Our high school physics teacher experimented with radiation caused mutations in fruit flies back in the 1950's. He is probably dead now, but in his later years he was a consultant to NASA based on his decades of experiments from what I was told. Fruit flies can go through 33 generations in just a matter of weeks. My guess is that he would radiate a batch and follow them to see how long it took mutations to occur.

[TheMastersNemesis]

3. Darwin Was Exactly Right

Darwin was more right than he could possible know at the time. That is because he did not know about DNA, which is the superstructure of biological change. Go to the PBS website in your area and look up NOVA. In that library of CD,s you will find a NOVA two hour special "What Darwin Never Knew" or "What Darwin Did Not Know". Try to get a copy of that special and have your son watch it. It explains a good many things. But I will try to summarize here.

For one Darwin did understand that natural selection happened. He was pretty accurate about why it happened. He could not know the all exact reasons natural selection happened. And not knowing that DNA existed he could not understand why there is so much complexity as well as so much refinement.

We have decoded the genome of most living things. We have completely decoded the human genome. So we know where all the genes are and are getting a better sense of what is happening. We know the number of genes and chromosomes that a cell has in its DNA. What puzzled biologists was that the genes in the DNA were only about 2% of the entire DNA molecule. originally cell biologists believed that the extra 98% of the matter was just inert. Even then they were not sure.

Now move down a few years and more sophisticated research and "wala" they discovered that all that extra matter was not inert. In fact it was millions of switches that turned genes on and off. And that changes in organisms did not just come down to a mutation itself. Mutations or changes or anomalies could occur when and how long switches turned certain genes on or failed to turn on at all or were missing or were sending signals to mutated genes or genes that were not there.

Here is how that works. What they discovered is let's say if a gene turns on too soon, turns off too soon, too short a time or too long a time you will get a heart defect or tendency in a sequence that is part of heart development. And that is the wonder of it all. For every living organism all the genes have to turn on and off at the right time and in the right place for that organism to develop as it should and be healthy. The number of genes and the millions and millions of switches will determine what a creature is. The fact that there are perhaps millions of switches turning on thousands of genes gives the possibility of trillions of combinations. This discovery explains the differentiation of living organisms and species. If some of your genes turned on wrong or were the wrong gene or had too much in common with a cow you could be a part cow.

From the most primitive microbe to the most sophisticated creature, there are some sequences that everyone shares. A human being shares some of the same "tunes" or sequences of cows, dogs, cats, grass, etc ect in difference percentages. We share 98% of the same DNA sequence with Chimpanzees. Based on this fact there is a tree of life based on genes and not the old biological method.

Finally, with new research fossil studies we are finding transitional creatures all the time. And evolution continues at. Even at the human level we are evolving in nearly undistinguishable ways. In the microbe world evolution occurs every millisecond. Germs are getting harder to kill because they are adjusting to our treatments. Generations of germs can grow in just hours and perhaps even minutes.

So that guy is full of it. If you have any more questions contact me on DU email. I have stop here. There is a lot more to the story. But GET that NOVA special. And they have many other specials on evolution that can fill the gaps.

[izquierdista]

4. Search YouTube for Richard Dawkins

There is as much there as you want to watch. Even in his short clips, he gets to the point and destroys all the creationist arguments. However, Nutting (the name fits, doesn't it?) is probably like the rest of the bunch, talking quickly and blustering their way through with half truth and all sort of logical errors. The best way to counteract them is to have them stop and explain in detail -- they can't do it.

[TheMastersNemesis]

6. Good Idea

Search under "evolution science".

[LongTomH]

7. There are some good science blogs out there

Try The Panda's Thumb.

Also, Carl Zimmer's The Loom, which isn't strictly about evolution; but it does have frequent posts about evolution and refuting creationism. One excellent example of the latter is: Ann Coulter Nostalgia: Behold, For I Am the Giant Flatulent Raccoon, where Carl Zimmer turns his wit on the Coultergeist and her anti-evolution rants.

[eridani]

13. The Panda's Thumb is great--also anything else by SJ Gould n/t

[laconicsax]

8. There's a series on YouTube called The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv=KnJX68ELbAY&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL126AFB53A6F002CC

[provis99]

9. have your son ask him about the banana proof of creationism.

Yes, creationist are serious about this...

[wyldwolf]

10. Take the advice in this thread, compile it into bullet points then have your son...

... print copies and distribute it.

[tk2kewl]

11. Have him show this clip and ask Mr. Nutting if he subscribes to the argument

http://www.democraticunderground.com/100284101

[LongTomH]

12. Another good resource is the Talk.Origins Archive

Here's the evolution FAQs page on their site.

Sorry, I meant to post a link to this last night. Talk.Origins is a great resource for arguing with creationists and (un)intelligent-design advocates. The only problem with it, is that it's an 'embarrassment of riches;' but, the FAQ page gives you the high points.

Another point, tell your son not to give up if his counter-arguments are buried under a pile of absolute bullshit replies; that's called the Gish Gallop:

The Gish Gallop is an informal name for a debating technique that involves drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood that has been raised. Usually this results in many involuntary twitches in frustration as the opponent struggles just to decide where to start. It is named after creationism activist and professional debater Duane Gish.

A good idea would be to have your son take notes and look up the specific points the creationist speaker mentions after his talk. If he's in the type of school where they invite a creationist speaker, he will still need to argue with his teachers and classmates. Have him use the Talk.Origins FAQ or the Index to Creationist Claims.

Edited again to add: After the talk, I suggest you have your son post his notes to the Science forum where we could help him with the arguments.

Last note to the young man: illegitimi non carborundum - Don't let the bastards grind you down!

[HopeHoops]

14. Would God intentionally make a platypus?

[DetlefK]

15. He made them from left-over spare-parts.

[HopeHoops]

16. I'm thinking graywarrior had something to do with this.

[Orsino]

17. Heh. Get a load of this thread title on a wingnut site:

No, never mind. It features a picture of the Obamas as apes. The thread title is "Need some help so my son can disrupt a pro evolution speaker," and it quotes your OP.

Taking down Nutting quickly will probably require a look at his talking points at discovercreation.org...which I can't seem to access now.