Same old, tired arguments

I came across this blog post today and insisted on replying…though by the end I just felt weary. It consists of your typical arguments against evolution. My comment is awaiting moderation, though, so here is my reply:

“The universe, which shows so much evidence of design and purpose, was not designed.”

What evidence do you know of that indicates the universe was designed and has a purpose?

“After all, they’re trying to explain to us why the world spontaneously came about and became increasingly complex to its present point by purely natural processes.”

Please clarify what you mean by “increasingly complex”.

“They’re trying to explain away the extreme improbability, using speculation to keep their theory from being falsified, but never being able to test whether these proposed universe bubbles or multiverses actually exist!”

What extreme improbability? What do you think the probability is (and what exactly are you referring to here–the Big Bang, the existence of other universes…?)? Why do you think it’s “extreme”?

“When cornered, they glibly shrug, “Well, we’re here, aren’t we?” [So says Richard Dawkins, who hypocritically says that God must not exist because, ignoring entirely an entire set of data with all the glassy-eyed zeal of a religious fanatic, he finds God to be improbable. ”

What data is he ignoring?

“No one would suggest such a farce in the face of overwhelming and obvious evidence of design, but these guys do so on a daily basis when it regards the irreducibly complex, intricately inter-related intelligently designed universe!”

So-called “irreducibly complex” systems have been shown to evolve. You can find many references to this here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200.html

“We must account for these realities of the observable world, even if cosmological evolution and biological evolution cannot”

How does evolution NOT account for beavers building dams or birds building nests?

“The Stanley-Miller experiment has been thoroughly discredited, though it still gets put into our textbooks. ”

I think you mean “Miller-Urey” instead of “Stanley-Miller”. One of the men involved in this experiment was Stanley Miller; the other was Harold Urey. I believe you don’t understand the Miller-Urey experiment. Nothing about it has been discredited. On the contrary, it showed that the building blocks of life can be built from inorganic precursors. Did the experiment result in all the building blocks needed for life? No. Did it create life itself? No. However, it demonstrated the possibility that life could have begun in such a manner. Several similar experiments have been done since with similar results.

“While natural processes are observed, origins is beyond observation, much less testing.”

How so?

“continuing and increasing complexity and order in defiance of observable entropy, life from nonlife, common descent when we only see variation with set kinds of animals”

Ah, the classic “evolution can’t be true because it violates the second law of thermodynamics” argument. I defer to Talk Origins:

“The second law of thermodynamics says no such thing. It says that heat will not spontaneously flow from a colder body to a warmer one or, equivalently, that total entropy (a measure of useful energy) in a closed system will not decrease. This does not prevent increasing order because

the earth is not a closed system; sunlight (with low entropy) shines on it and heat (with higher entropy) radiates off. This flow of energy, and the change in entropy that accompanies it, can and will power local decreases in entropy on earth.
entropy is not the same as disorder. Sometimes the two correspond, but sometimes order increases as entropy increases. (Aranda-Espinoza et al. 1999; Kestenbaum 199 Entropy can even be used to produce order, such as in the sorting of molecules by size (Han and Craighead 2000).
even in a closed system, pockets of lower entropy can form if they are offset by increased entropy elsewhere in the system.
In short, order from disorder happens on earth all the time.”

By the way, could you please clarify “set kinds of animals”?

“Worse, for biological evolution, more is presumed, namely that one kind of animal can change into another, even though no one has ever seen this occur. We’ve seen variations within the kinds, but a cat is still a cat and never anything else.”

There have been many observed instances of speciation. Why do you think otherwise?

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