More Recent Comments

Monday, May 21, 2012

The Top Three Flaws In Evolutionary Theory

Casey Luskin is one of the leading IDiots of the Discovery Institute. He posts frequently on Evolution News & Views. Here's one of his recent posts where he lets us in one the The Top Three Flaws in Evolutionary Theory.

If you've ever wondered why I call them IDiots, this will help you understand.
Unfortunately most public schools do NOT teach about the flaws in evolutionary theory. Instead, they censor this information, hiding from students all of the science that challenges Darwinian evolution. But in a perfect world, if the evidence against Darwinian theory were taught, these would be my top three choices:
  1. Tell students that the fossil record often lacks transitional forms and that there are "explosions" of new life forms, a pattern of radiations that challenges Darwinian evolutionary theory.
  2. Tell students that many scientists have challenged the ability of random mutation and natural selection to produce complex biological features.
  3. Tell students that many lines of evidence for Darwinian evolution and common descent are weak:
    a. Vertebrate embryos start out developing very differently, in contrast with the drawings of embryos often found in textbooks which mostly appear similar.
    b. DNA evidence paints conflicting pictures of the "tree of life". There is no such single "tree."
    c. Evidence of small-scale changes, such as the modest changes in the size of finch-beaks or slight changes in the color frequencies in the wings of "peppered moths", shows microevolution, NOT macroevolution.


11 comments :

NewEnglandBob said...

It must be that Luskin is just a compulsive liar. It is a reasonable explanation since even a 12 year old can refute his lies.

Schenck said...

Luskin's list is one of those things that are so incredibly stupid that it actually makes the rest of us look stupid for even bothering to challenge them!

Cameron said...

Someone needs to send Luskin a copy of Donald Prothero's book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters.

JLT said...

It take solace in the fact that if I type "Casey Luskin is" into Google, Google's fill-in function suggests "Casey Luskin is an idiot".

Anonymous said...

Luskin has two significant strikes against him - religious fanatic and quite stupid. You can't hope to remedy that combination.

Reginald Selkirk said...

La Sierra prof EXPELLED for teaching biology

Jud said...

Surprised no one has mentioned what was to me the most glaring stupidity/error in Luskin's "top three flaws" - there are five of them.

(Yes, he's got the last three as subtopics, but they are no more closely related to each other than they are to the first two.)

Karl said...

||Tell students that many scientists have challenged the ability of random mutation and natural selection to produce complex biological features.||

He links to the dissenting from darwin petition. Bahahaha.

Peter White said...

I think that would be a waste of time and money. Creationists are famous for not reading anything that doesn't confirm their beliefs. My nephew asked me for evidence of evolution so I sent him a copy of TGSOE. He read the dust jacket but never opened the book. After debating for a while he decided I was unreasonable for not accepting his bible quotes as evidence of ID and returned the book to me.

Anonymous said...

Some food for thought:
Have we made any observable evidence of beneficial mutation in mammals?

Are there calculations made using variables such as lifetime of a specific bacteria, chance of mutation, chance of beneficial mutation, rate of mutation with increased genes, observed age of earth etc. and see if the theoretical time it takes for a single organism to mutate into human beings match up with the time given?

One of the species which contain a lot of genes is the water flea, what is the cancer rate of this little critter? is it higher than human beings? lower? why?

With so much difficulty in even obtaining definite data for variables regarding genetics, how can one say there is no God when a gene is less than a dust particle in the cosmos? We struggle so much with things both great and small, isn't it arrogant to say there is no God?

Rob said...

I'd like to see some comments besides the likes of, "stupid"

how about making this a real debate and using some evidence to back your claims