Shattering the Icons of Evolution

2 Comments

1. "The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust"
   I agree 100%, both have the same feather weight

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2. I posted this video in an online discussion on Reddit. The following is the response I received. There were some hyperlinks that may not come through. Would you comment on the errors or omissions in the video that are claimed by the poster? Thanks

   Sorry my guy, but that video is riddled with misconceptions, mistakes, and misrepresentation.

   Universal common descent is not controversial; it's demonstrated by all available evidence. It's also accepted by basically all biologists for a reason.

   When he talks about peppered moths he talks about the "survival of the fittest rather than the arrival of the fittest", but he apparently missed the paper discussing the tracking of the dark-moth mutation in the population. He also misrepresents it as being "under fire", which is pretty inexcusable and shows he hasn't seen the follow-up studies. Alas, guess his time as a teacher didn't teach him to do research.

   His entire argument regarding finch beaks and the like is an argument from incredulity; he doesn't present any reason to think that small changes over time cannot lead to larger changes, he doesn't address any of the genetics involved, he just says that he doesn't get it. He doesn't address the genetic underpinning of the finch beaks, doesn't address that we can trace haplotypes through their populations, doesn't address that the same genetic analysis that lets us study their diversification also demonstrates shared common descent with other amneotes and tetrapods – he just takes one bit and goes "I don't see how this works" without support.

   He talks about mutation being important for evolution as if that's somehow a revelation; it's not, that's introductory. He then goes on to demonstrate that he doesn't understand how the loss of function can be part of evolution, which is again just his ignorance at work; he doesn't cite any examples of further systems developing atop such loss, such as the vitamin C regulatory systems in primates, he doesn't talk about gene duplication, he doesn't talk about nylon-eating bacteria, he cherry picks one thing that he feels agrees with his misconceptions and presents only that.

   He grossly misrepresents transitional forms, both in terms of what we have found and in terms of what we should expect. He speaks of "millions and billions", ignoring both that fossilization is a rare event and that stabilizing selection is a thing. Back in the real world, we have more than enough transitional forms to prove the point; not only should we have none if evolution were not true, we should not be able to predict where we would need to dig to find them if evolution were not true, yet we can. Hilariously he then cites a quote from Darwin about transitional forms, apparently not knowing that the single transitional form he mentions by name, Archaeopteryx, was the first one found and found within Darwin's lifetime. He predicted they would be found, and his prediction was vindicated. There's no case to be made against evolution here.

   But it gets worse, because, as gone over here at quote #75, he's also lying about what Darwin said. Turns out what he presented was rhetorical; he goes on, in the very next sentence, to explain why that is. Oh, he also goes to cite the classic Gould quote mine; the quote is also viciously out of context. Between these two he's either too dumb to read the very next sentence in On the Origin or is intentionally bearing false witness.

   That's just up to the thirty minute mark or so. Want me to do the rest? It doesn't get better.

   He is, exactly in line with Dawkins quote he opened with, either ignorant or lying. I pity the students he failed.

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