What's your favorite false or dumb argument against evolution & for creationism?

Question

For many Christians belief in creationism seems as important as belief in God. I'm amused at their false "proofs" against evolution. Most really believe these silly arguments because it's what they're taught, and they don't challenge their leaders.

A few:
>It's just a theory (so's number theory, so math isn't real?)
>If man evolved from monkeys (wrong) why are there still monkeys?
>No transitional forms or missing links (false, there are many)
>Carbon dating is grossly inaccurate (yet all real scientists trust it?)
>Evolution can't be proven (not if you reject evidence & logic, but yes it can, & has been)
>Evolution should still be ongoing (it is)
>Mathematical improbablity, thermodynamics, the "watch parts in a tumbler" argument (falsely assumes that specific animals were the "goal" of evolution)
>God (or Satan) planted fossels to trick us (why?)
>Man's made in God's image & God's not a monkey (just dumb)
>Evolution is a religion (nope!)

So what are your favorites?

Another great one: The earth is only 6,000 (or 10,000) years old so there's not enough time for evolution to have occurred (uh-huh... and the sun god Helios carries the sun across the sky in his fiery chariot)

Wow, great answers so far. Thanks to all for sharing such good insight. Please keep 'em coming!

Answer 1

"Why are there still monkeys?"

This one is astounding because in 5 words, the person is demonstrating 4 fundamental misunderstandings about evolution, and one bonehead logic error:
1. That man evolved from monkeys. Which is not part of the theory of evolution.
2. That evolution is a long chain (like models of cars that get replaced every year), rather than a constantly branching tree.
3. That monkeys have not evolved (i.e. that monkeys are nothing more than "unevolved humans"). Monkeys are every bit as evolved as we are.
4. That monkeys should have gone extinct. There is absolutely no reason they *must* go extinct even if we did evolve from them.

And the bonehead logic error is that this logic, taken to its conclusion, would conclude that there should be only one species of life on the planet. (If mammals evolved from reptiles, why are there still reptiles. If reptiles evolved from amphibians, why are there still amphibians. Etc.) I.e. the argument so quickly collapses into absurdity, that it is clear the asker spent 0 time thinking about it.

But the other one that always impresses me with it's stupidity:

"Darwin recanted evolution on his deathbed."

There are some arguments that are just plain false. And some arguments that are irrelevant, even if true.

But the "Darwin recanted" argument is both flat out false, and completely irrelevant. It is false because it was a fabrication by a woman named Lady Hope to gain some notoriety for herself by claiming to hear Darwin's final deathbed confession, even though nobody in his family said she had any occasion to be anywhere *near* Darwin. It is the lowest form of lie ... inventing the words of a dying man.

But it is also totally *irrelevant* to the truth or falsity of Darwin's ideas. This argument could only be made by someone who DOESN'T UNDERSTAND SCIENCE AT ALL. I.e. that if the scientist who proposes a theory "takes it back" then the theory disappears.

Answer 2

I have heard the following arguments against evolution (with science's answers after).
CR) What good is half an eye? (Disproves evolution because the intermediate of ha;f an eye would be useless.)
EV) Many animals have partial eyes and use them to their advantage. Some animals have light sensing spots that just tell the animal if it is light out or not. Some animals have better eyes than humans do.

CR) The reason dinosaur bones are deeper in strata than smaller animals is that when the flood retreated, the heavier bones were deposited first.
EV) Simply not the case. Below dinosaur bones are many fossils of smaller animals.

CR) Carbon dating argument.
EV) Even if carbon dating is inaccurate at over 40,000 years, it still predicts an Earth much older than 10,000 years.

CR) If laws of thermodynamics are true then life is impossible because it goes from simple to complex.
EV) Yes, if life were to evolve in a closed system with no energy input. But this isn't true,we are continuously bombarded by energy from the sun. Life creates more disorder than order, but not if the system includes the sun and all dissipation of energy.

CR) Evolution can't be recreated so it can't be tested.
EV) It doesn't need to be recreated to be tested. Predictions are made from existing evidence. New evidence will either support or refute the prediction.

Creationism isn't science because it knows the answer (from the Bible) and then finds facts to prove the answers. Science uses facts to find the answers.

Answer 3

A version of "Mathematical improbability" deserving special mention because of such ubiquitous, untrammeled use by anti-evolutionists is:

"Complexity can't increase, only decrease, because it's proven that entropy always increases!"

If that were really true, how is that plants and trees grow up to be complex and even huge things from tiny seeds? How is that from shapeless tiny blastocysts we animals grow big and frequently unpredictable because we've become really, really complex things? Doesn't that violate the "Law of Always Increasing Entropy, Which Really Means Always Increasing Disorder No Matter Where You Look, No Exceptions"?

Another one is:

"It looks like it serves a purpose. Having a purpose means having a design. If it's design, then there's a designer. End of subject!"

Anything found in nature that seems to have some function, such as a river (which has the function of transporting water to lower places!), is "design", and therefore that proves that a designer has made it so. Otherwise, it should appear entirely bereft of purpose, and perhaps even senseless, before we may deem it lacking a designer.

Answer 4

I am a big fan of arguments based on irreducible complexity. Of which my favourite is that the eye doesn't work if you take away any of the components so how did it evolve? No reference to the idea of (for instance) flat worms with light sensitive patches adapting to slowly and incrementally improving a little each generation until you have what we might recognise as an eye.

Clearly this proves the presence of an intelligent designer to these people.... unlike the human appendix, that much more neatly proves that if there was a designer he was a bit of a @!*$.

Answer 5

One that sticks out for me is, "Teach the controversy." After the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it should be apparent why this statement is preposterous.

Another one is to claim that the scientific community is biased against intelligent design, and that's why they have not been able to publish more widely.

Or that ideas of homology between species is based on outdated drawings that were mostly fabricated. And the embryos don't really look at all similar. (Yeah, there's this new thing called genetics. And what do you know, different species are similar. That's why you can test drugs on mice.)

Answer 6

I guess my take on it is if creation is true, then we are all decended from adam and eve. So, we are inbred. So, then everything is wiped clean and Noah's family lives. So, we are inbred again. So, we are most likely retards so that means, they were really really smart and really really beautiful. So, why didn't they build space ships, instead of Noah's ark. Who said god is not a monkey. Has anyone seen him. There is more proof that aliens exist than God. Who's to say we are not aliens, maybe billions of years ago a metoer blasted a chunk off of another planet that had living organisms on it. It landed on earth and that is were life originated from.

Answer 7

Ms. Garrison explains evolution...

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=77709