Infeasibility of the Evolution Model
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EDIT: This is an essay I wrote for a class in response to a prompt, so that's probably why it doesn't totally address evolution and why I don't think it's feasible.
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Infeasibility of the Evolution Model
Evolution has been around for a long time. Ancients such as the Greek, Arabs, and Chinese have long discussed the probability of species changing over time. Creationism has been expounded by the Hebrews since their beginning, and subsequently so have the Christians of our modern era. As such, basic premises of both Ideas seem to contradict each other and have led to great and fierce debates between both camps. Evolution holds that for species to undergo mutations that would change their very species, it would require millions upon millions of years for the genetic mutation to take hold, but creationists hold staunchly to the biblical account that the world was created within a week and that all species were created within that time which would date the world to a period of six to ten thousand years old. As these contradictions exist, the two groups that support either Idea would be pitted against each other with arguments and debates since the progenitor of the modern western evolutionary ideas, Charles Darwin, first published his new Idea to our current time. As the entire creationist Idea is based in the Jewish Torah and the Christian Old Testament, it would not be logically valid to use it as a source, so the entire argument for or against should be used from a scientific point where both Ideas can be examined to provide a basis for debate.
The entire concept of evolution is based on several premises that supports and is critical to maintaining it. These premises include the ideas that: the universe and earth in extension was created in a cosmological event known as the big bang, and abiogenesis, the concept that life can come from no life. These two concepts fly in the face of then truths that God had created both the world and life. The Catholic Church's reaction to the burgeoning study of evolution was one of hesitant curiosity, as it allowed the continuation of study as long as it didn't impede on Catholic theistic views. As evolution further developed the Catholic church decided to meld the two theories by fitting the evolution concept into the Bible by reinterpreting different passages, such as saying the six days needed to create the world and its inhabitants were not actual measurements of a day, but a longer extended period of time. Though the Catholic Church was one to embrace and modify its views, other factions of the Christian faith such as the Protestants did not whole-heartedly agree with the Catholic Church and held to the strict interpretation of the Bible that stated the world and its people were created in 6 days. Because there were a great number of people who felt their faith was under attack, they responded with hyperboles and rhetoric against the evolutionists. The concept had threatened the core beliefs of the Christians that if their creation was cast into doubt, what other parts of their faith could crumble and prove worthless, and as the apostle Paul said in the New Testament, the Christians should be most pitied if their faith proved false.
Currently as of year 2011, debates between the evolutionists and creationists are still raging. Where debates used to take place on the television between apologetics trained theologians and physicists, they now occur widely on the internet in the form of formal discussions and nonsensical rants. Though many of the arguments occur in the form of hot-headed profanity slinging, others who have actual background knowledge of the science or at least a general understanding of the subject hold intellectual debates providing scientific evidence to back their claims of either creation or evolution. These debates that take place use a variety of sources though, and as the creationists will use biblical accounts, most non-Christians would not accept such sources as valid as they don't believe in the Bible and give it no authority. Thus the creationists often don't give themselves much credit of having a stable argument with which to face the evolutionists. The evolutionists, and in extension the scientists often have ways of proving their points with scientific studies and observation in astrophysics and geology, but they often make a fallacious mistake of resting their argument on an appeal to authority. Many of the people who support evolution don't understand the core principles that embody it, and thus does not do it justice, such as constantly referring the evolution concept as an actual theory, and by constantly claiming it as an unalterable fact of life. Their constant reliance on the scientists to seemingly provide them with an absolute truths have left their arguments lacking as their constant appeal to the infallibility of the scientists' knowledge is erroneous. Science itself is defined as the pursuit of knowledge thorough the observation and experimentation, otherwise known as the scientific method, to find axioms, and when their current theory has been met with an observation or fact that disproves it, it is no longer considered a truth. The actual reference of the concept of evolution as a theory is also erroneous. A scientific theory is, in definition, a collection of scientific laws, facts, and tested hypothesis that can explain a certain natural phenomenon. Breaking this down, a theory is made of parts that come directly from the scientific method that has a strict criterion of research and how it is to be executed. The scientific method follows that there is a phenomenon that has been observed, then later a hypothesis is formulated to explain how it has occurred, tests and experiments are used on the hypothesis to prove whether or not it is true, and from those tests and experiments the hypothesis is either redone, or accepted as an axiom, ready to be disproved with further study, not an absolute truth. From this definition, it is impossible for evolution to be a theory as it requires testing and experimentation with quantifiable measurements to qualify as a either a scientific law or hypothesis. The clarification of this point is to ensure that the term theory isn't used incorrectly as a connotation for truth or a probable fact.
As to my own belief, I will hold that the Bible is true and unerring; therefore the creation is the truth. As it is unwise in a debate, argument, or exposition to use a religious work as a basis for a stance as many people will not agree on the premises it provides, and as it is also an appeal to authority, only established scientific principles should be used to discuss this topic. In argument, it holds that either evolution is true, or creation is true, so if it can be proven beyond a doubt that evolution could not be reasonably achieved, it further holds that creation is true. With this in mind there are several points of interest in the evolution concepts that are loose and are relatively fallible. As stated earlier, all life must have an origin and an abode, that is the world, and the world must have an origin. In order of current scientific concepts are those of the Big Bang, abiogenesis, and evolution. The big bang is described as originally being a hot dense state that rapidly expanded. This contention is highly debatable as such a dense object would have an equally great gravitational pull that would prevent it from expanding. Such a dense object would most likely be denser than our current cosmic black holes, and thus more gravitational pull. The second point of contention is that if it were at all possible to expand, the particles, which were identified as hydrogen gas, would follow the properties of gas and would expand to occupy every available space, making it impossible to coalesce together. Thus the Big Bang concept, though it may explain some phenomenon that occurs in our universe, has some insurmountable scientific facts that disprove it, unless scientists and/or evolutionists find a different explanation. The next point is abiogenesis, or the beginning of life from no life. In early days of science, maggots were seen as coming from raw meat and scientists then concluded that maggots were coming to life from nothing. Later scientific evidence came to prove that flies had laid eggs on the meat and proved it wrong. In our modern concept of abiogenesis, scientists experimented in ways they believed an early earth could produce life. The Urey-Miller experiment used gasses that they believed were in huge quantities during the earth's early period. By this experiment they were able to create 5 different types of amino acids, and later when their samples were reexamined, they found 20 types of amino acids. Though this experiment proved that amino acids could be formed from the early earth environment, the actual formation of proteins is nigh on impossible. The act of creating a single protein requires peptide bonds which would require the use of enzymes to facilitate the dehydration synthesis with which to form the bonds. The simplest protein in a cell is hundreds of amino acids large, and given the possibility that all the amino acids could be created in the early earth period, there is no way they could ever bond together to form an actual protein as proteins requires many different amino acids to bond together in a specific chain. The probability of such an occurrence is beyond the possibility of statistical reasoning. Further reasoning that if a single protein could be created, it wouldn't be enough to create a cell much less any type of cell structure, but if cell structures could be created and could survive in an environment very unfriendly towards life, there is no possible explanation on how they would eventually form a cell. It would be like throwing a bunch of car parts together, and by jumbling it around for millions of years it would eventually form a fully functioning car. Continuing, if all these impossibilities could be accomplished and life actually came from such a manner and fashion, the actual evolution of animals is highly improbable. Most of evolution is based on Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection and that in itself is very probable, but the natural selection paradigm extends only to the beneficial mutations for a species, so it would be impossible, using Darwin's standards, to say that a fish would evolve into an amphibian, as what use would a fish have to breathe air and walk on land?
Therefore, evolution and creation has always been at odds with each other as they both have differing requirements for the beginning of the world and of creation of life, and through modern means, this debate has reached many different classes of people, from the layman to the highly educated. My explanation using science will hopefully broaden people's view on evolution and possibly give rise to a new insight on this concept and of creation.
Works Cited
McLeod, Jarvis, Spear. Writing about the world. Nevada 2005
"Refuting Evolution" http://www.arrivalofthefittest.com/evolution.htm May 16 2011
"Appendix E: Introduction to the Scientific Method" http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html May 16 2011
"Definition of Fact, Law, and Theory in scientific work" http://ncse.com/evolution/education/definitions-fact-theory-law-scientific-work May 16 2011
"History of Evolutionary thought" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought
May 16 2011
"On the origin of species" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species May 16 2011
"Abiogenesis" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis May 16 2011
"Miller-Urey Experiment" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
May 16 2011
"Catholic Church and evolution" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution
May 16 2011
"Big Bang" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang May 16 2011
"The Big Bang" http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/cern/ideas/bang.html May 16 2011
"Peptide Bond" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peptide_bond May 16 2011
24 Comments • Newest first
Everything you said, will be put in quote marks: "like this", because I find it annoying to quote on basil.
"The entire concept of evolution is based on several premises that supports and is critical to maintaining it. These premises include the ideas that: the universe and earth in extension was created in a cosmological event known as the big bang, and abiogenesis, the concept that life can come from no life."
- Not true, the entire concept was adaptation through variation and natural selection. Now known as change in allele frequencies from one generation to another. It has nothing to do with consmology nor abiogenesis.
"Currently as of year 2011, debates between the evolutionists and creationists are still raging."
- True, but only in the public display, no arguing is actually happening in the scientific community.
"Their constant reliance on the scientists to seemingly provide them with an absolute truths have left their arguments lacking as their constant appeal to the infallibility of the scientists' knowledge is erroneous."
- No one claims absolute truth, but what is most likely. The same goes with Gravity.
" From this definition, it is impossible for evolution to be a theory as it requires testing and experimentation with quantifiable measurements to qualify as a either a scientific law or hypothesis."
- Too bad for you that we actually can test them
More is wrong but I wont be bothered with this in too much depth.
[quote=BalthEMS]Your idea is that for evolution to be possible a fish must suddenly sprout, let's say legs and lungs, to become an amphibian. That isn't the case.
I could be for example mutation led to one fish having hardened fins, making them able to walk on the seabed. (good image Frogfish and notice the legs/fins)
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=frogfish&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1920&bih=1028
This mutation for whatever reason allowed the fish to become better at survival, perhaps it allowed them to cling to things to prevent being washed away by riptides.
[/quote]
Hey, sorry for getting back so late. I've reviewed your claim of frogfishes and from the first glance, it reminded me of coral, and upon further study into the species, I had discovered that your "hardening of fins" were for the express purpose of camouflage to mimicry the coral which it lives aroud. Therefore survival was dependant on whether or not it could hide from predators, not the use of its fins to protect itself from being washed away. And as natural selection would claim, the frogfish would then survive more efficiently the better its camouflage is, so its fins would never evolve to the degree you would suggest.
Your example of frogfishes is just one of many "intermediate" species that people have claimed to support the inter-species evolution, but upon closer inspection of each individual example, many of the species whos traits are claimed to be intermediary are an evolutionary dead-end as usually explained with Darwin's theory of Natural Selection.
You got an F on that essay, didn't you?
@Swehttam You contested the point of gas coalescing with the assertion that they could bond together through the molecular bonding that could occur through molecular attractive forces, but that doesn't explain how those forces could be powerful enough to hold two extremely fast moving molecules together. Continuting your analogy, sure the cars could touch, but if they were to crash, they would undoubtly be thrown apart (noting that the force wouldn't be completely transfered into motion, but would go into destroying the car).
Clearing up a point when I had said the simplest protein would contain hundreds of amino acids. I would like to retract that statement and say that a [i]typical[/i] protein would contain hundreds of amino acids.
I have answered why I believe my analogy of the car is adequate through a previous post of which I have tagged you.
My last point will contain rebuttals from @Classicfan, @CorpraIStorm, @BalthEMS, @ISnowyI as well. All of you declared that you believe natural selection could change fish into amphibians (as an example), through the reasoning that it would start feeding on a new food source therefore preserving its life in the face of competition for a particular food source. Though this may seem like a sound argument, there are flaws that must be addressed, such as acknowledging that natural selection is a slow process and this would prevent such a transition. Continuing the example, if a fish were to move onto land to a new food source and therefore preserving itself, it would have to evolve quite quickly and specifically. In order to change from a species that feeds under water on plankton, the fish would be required to evolve the use of lungs, teeth, and a digestive system that could utilize a new food source relatively quickly. If a fish did not evolve almost immediately to these specifications, it would then die off and not pass on its genes, therefore ending that genetic mutation. Since it is acknowledged that natural selection and mutations occur slowly over time, there would never be a chance of a species to change its survival practices in time.
@dimo I agree that I have provided a false dichotomy as I haven't considered other's point of view. From my, and other people who trust in the Bible, point of view, Creation is the true account of the world's beginning, and as evolution is almost an opposite of what it represents, I would view it that if evolution is true, then creation would be false, but if evolution is false, creation would be true. I agree with you analysis of my fallacy, so I'll work to take it out.
The biggest flaw in your argument is that of false dichotomy.
Nearly all of your arguments have been refuted time after time. You have provided no new insight into the topic, nor have you began to even scrape the surface of the wealth of empirical information associated with evolution. I honestly hope you fail, but since I assume you attend an American school, I think your scientific content will be completely overlooked in favour of coherent English.
@Howdidilose thx =)
@Classicfan You bring up several good points that my lack of research has overlooked. After further reading with your assertions to guide me, I found a statement from Miller, "While amino acids are easily synthesized in the laboratory, the synthesis reported here is the first one carried out under conditions that might reasonably be present on the primitive earth. The synthesis of amino acids is not the synthesis of life, nor is it a synthesis of proteins. However, it represents a step toward our understanding of how live matter may have arisen on earth." (8) There he proclaims that even though he had succesfully sythesized amino acids, he recognizes that this is not the answer to how proteins could've been synthesized.
Digressing from the point I have just made, I will re-assert several of points with clarification. I have read over what you had said about vesicles and the probability that many different chemicals, amino acids, and nucleic acids put together into a lipid would greatly increase the probability that a cell could form. I will contest this statement with facts that cells are highly organized with many different pathways that allows a cell to work. Many different cell structures do many different jobs, mitochondria for energy production, vacuoles for storage, ribosomes for protein synthesis, neucleus the center of knowledge for the cell. These structures inside the cell are linked with complex proteins and enzymes that ferry different proteins to different structures in order to keep the cell alive and functioning. The possibility of complex functions arising from mere randomness has such a low probability that it can be called a statistical improbability. But giving you the benefit of the doubt that one cell managed to survive admist all the complexities, how could it survive? The cell would need to know how to mitosis to populate, but then the DNA would need to already have that information. A single DNA chain is extremely complex and the simplest bacteria is known to have 600,000 base pairs. One nucleic base cannot be off in order for it to function properly and survive. The law of probability states that if something has less than 1 in 1x10^50 chance it would be impossible to occur. I've taken this to calculate the probability that a 600,000 base pair DNA has to form, but unfortunately the permutations past 150 base pairs has already left my calculator rendering error results. At 150 base pairs, I have recorded 1 out of 5.7X10^262 times. This means the possibility of even creating the necessary DNA highly improbable. Therefore, "the probability of such an occurrence is beyond the possibility of statistical reasoning".
I will continue with my reasoning later.. i wanna read some manga =)
@Swehttam I'll reply to you later as you have many points for me to address, and I'm still in school.. so not a lot of time to read up on stuff.
I read the whole thing o.o.
@ISnowyI: Ahh good point. I'm not too sure why I decided to put in the Big Bang, probably because I was heavily influenced by my first source. Thanks.
I read the first part of your essay and got up to the part about mutation.
It is estimated that mutation makes up around about 1% of total evolution.
@IsnowyI Hey, thanks so much for proofreading my essay. Luckily my teacher didn't show up to class to day so i still have time to edit it.
To everyone else, thanks for everyone, (swhethamm) for responding intelligently with evidence and careful thought. Though we may not agree on definitions and terms which lead to greater disagreements, I'm thankful that we could have a civil discussion. (thought i haven't said anything yet, I will post rebuttal later when I'm not as lazy..)
I don't see why you would go into the origin of life when evolution is mostly concerned with the process of how life changes over time.
That's why my History of Science professor stressed the point that many natural philosophers in Britain was prepared to accept some form of evolution, by contending that God indeed is a creator who put life on Earth and allowed it to change over time--a more liberal interpretation of creation.
Also, your interpretation of the Big Bang shows that you've done little research on Supersymmetry.
@Swehttam Haha, sorry I meant it as "I'm agreeing with Swehttam"
It's not correct to say that all Protestants are Creationists, as most main-line Protestants such as Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Lutherans all accept Evolution.
[quote=CorpraIStorm]Seriously...This is your argument from science?
Terrestrial organisms had unique advantages that increased the chances of survival -- fewer predators, larger food supply, more mating grounds, etc. You can't debunk evolution with the Bible and made-up science, sorry.[/quote]
Your rebuttal doesn't address my assertion. Please use a non-generic response and actually address my reasoning.
As @Swehttam stated, yeah, such chemical reactions can happen spontaneously, enzymes increase the rates of reactions 1000 fold, but they are not actually required for reaction to proceed. Not only that, but once a product is created, it could push the equilibrium to make further reaction of turning reactants into products more favourable.
Also, besides basic nucleic and amino acids, there were lipids present at the time. Lipids can spontaneously form vesicles; this woudl lead to enclosing various chemicals together and allowing a greater probability of reactions taking place (this is where the cell membrane is thought to have originated, I believe). Plus, the hammerhead ribozyme (very very basic enzyme) existed and is believed to have provided catalytic activity during the time the organisms and such were forming. So, considering all those instances, "the probability of such an occurrence is [not really] beyond the possibility of statistical reasoning." xD
Also, that "throwing car parts and expecting a car to form" analogy is not the best, quite honestly, since we're talking about living things reacting with each other, not scrap metal.
And the part were you say "if it can be proven beyond a doubt that evolution could not be reasonably achieved, it further holds that creation is true". That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
And yeah, what the other guys said about the advantage of living on earth rather than water. Plus, it's not like fish popped outta nowhere in the water and then decided to jump onto land for fun. There were many organisms besides fish which were also evolving at the time.
@PastaForever: Yea, it wasn't an essay written solely against evolution, it was following a prompt. Only the 2nd half of the second paragraph, and the 3rd paragraph was about evolution.
[quote=crossout3]O.o Did anyone read what I wrote? (because all responses seemed to prove the contrary) Or did you all just ignore it and post your generic responses to what you think is a religious exposition?
Btw, this essay I wrote for my class is a scientific analysis of the Concepts of Evolution and the Big Bang.[/quote]
Yeah, about two thirds of your relevant argument wasn't related to evolution.
O.o Did anyone read what I wrote? (because all responses seemed to prove the contrary) Or did you all just ignore it and post your generic responses to what you think is a religious exposition?
Btw, this essay I wrote for my class is a scientific analysis of the Concepts of Evolution and the Big Bang.
People don't understand the word [b]theory[/b]. But then again, not everyone here is a science major. Evolution is truth, regardless of what religious standpoint you come from. Either religions need to get with the time, or they will fall by the way side.
People are still treating evolution as a theory, while it was [b]proven[/b] already to be a fact. [b]Most[/b] (didn't say all) religious people choose not to believe it, but it doesn't make it any less of a fact. For instance; I can choose not to believe that most humans can walk, that doesn't mean I can't walk or most of the people I know can't walk. I'm not here to bash or disprove any religion, but you can't say that evolution is [i]"Just a theory" [/i] when it's not.
I still don't get why people try to pick apart the Big Bang and abiogenesis and use that against evolution. Neither one has to be true for species to evolve.
[quote=Satellite]Evolution is a fact to me, There's evidence about it. If you disregard it, go ahead, then you would have to disregard whole science. We can already control evolution and in future we may even be able to make modifications of species.
I have nothing against creationists, but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people believe in something like that.[/quote]
They would technically be classified as writers who use very persuasive techniques in their intellectual works.
Evolution is a fact to me, There's evidence about it. If you disregard it, go ahead, then you would have to disregard whole science. We can already control evolution and in future we may even be able to make modifications of species.
I have nothing against creationists, but it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people believe in something like that.